We ran, and my grandmother laughed. She was weeks away, but I could feel her joy at my weakness nonetheless. Her eyes, always present when I use my magic, were smiling. Margaret glared as she was dragged along with us. I knew what she wanted to say, but her eyes didn’t cut nearly as deep as the boy who was running alongside me. He didn’t glare. He didn’t look at me at all, really. Especially not as we ran through the quiet streets of Beddenmor. Still, every glance over his shoulder was like a new set of needles. His eyes pierced slowly. They were narrow and deep in the damage they did. Painful in the uniquely upsetting way of thin steel deep in my muscles. Each wound left a new bead of blood on my soul. And even as he ran as fast as he could, he continued to look over his shoulder—just past me. These glances left my heart with too many holes, and guilt leaked from each like tree sap.

  It was the fear. He was so scared. It was like his father had a hook in his cheek that forced him to turn and look back at his home nearly every breath. I wasn’t willing to kill. After Cammilla, I simply couldn’t properly judge when it was necessary. I couldn’t trust myself not to hurt someone innocent. Even in Beddenmor. Even in a town twisted in time like a snake eating its own tail. Even with the certainty that I could undo my mistakes, I couldn’t kill. And I thought trying might kill me instead. It would live with me for as long as I breathed. It was a step I couldn’t take.

  We ran past homes too dark and homes too bright, terrified far more of the former. I knew the man I’d left frozen had escaped the time that trapped him. He’d be looking for us. He’d be looking for his son—and likely alerting Luke’s cult to us. That was dangerous, but I didn’t fear it as much as I did the boy’s worried glances backward. I was starting to drown in guilt like I actually had killed someone. Because I’d made a choice. I’d deliberately left the boy’s father alive, and now he was forced to run. To fear. To live under the glare of a cruel parent, even when he was alone.

  So my boots met mud and stone and any other filth in the roads on our way to some undefined and ethereal safety. And with each step, the impact of my footfall radiated through my legs and reminded me of the impossible choice. Because I was making it again with each step. I could turn around, and I could still kill the man we were fleeing. I remembered what I’d been like while under Luke’s control. How terrifying. It was the same as I’d been when I was obedient to my grandmother. When there was someone else to direct me, I was a dangerous mage. But the magic was mine. I could still be dangerous. I could turn around, and I could erase that fear from the boy’s eyes, at least to an extent. I could still kill the man who’d hurt him. Which meant every step I took, I was making the choice all over again. I hated myself for it almost as much as I would have if I’d made the opposite decision.

  We ran together for a relatively short time. I was acutely aware that we spent less time running than I usually spent preparing for the day. Even so, it felt like hours. I couldn’t take the boy to Harrison’s home, or even to Hadley’s. He had far too much fear of being found for me to risk taking him anywhere near the girls. So I watched the homes we passed. I watched for those with too much light, and those with too little. I ran until we were passing more of the latter than the former, and I picked a clean, simple home I remembered from a previous loop. Every occupant of the house would have been taken by the Quiet already, and it would be safe. As we approached it, I crouched and picked up a large stone, only slowing a little to do so. I threw it at the nearest window, putting a large hole in it, before running ahead of the boy and diving through it.

  Glass tore into my clothing as I did, leaving thin red cuts along my flesh. I grimaced, but ignored the pain. It was mild, all things considered. I crashed into the ground and the broken glass, scrambling to my feet and unlocking the door for my companion before immediately beginning the chant for ‘Undone’. I didn’t know if we were safe from pursuit yet, but we were at least isolated.

  “You didn’t have to run, you know,” Margaret chided as soon as I stopped. “You have so much power. I don’t understand why you don’t use it!”

  I closed my eyes and swallowed the bile that tried to answer her. The boy closed the door himself, and my unfortunately visible aura finished repairing the window, as well as healing and scrapes I’d gotten in the process. It was strange. Time pulled glass from open wounds, and the feeling wasn’t all that different from the weight of Margaret’s question. I let the remaining sparks of aura fall to the ground like ash, then leaned against the nearest wall. I took several heavy breaths before finally looking up at the boy I’d run with.

  “I don’t understand,” was all he said. I let myself breathe for a few more moments before answering. Partially because my body wasn’t ready to speak yet, and partially because I didn’t have an answer for him. The way I’d entered his home and rushed out was so… It felt like being carried on a current. Once I’d made that first mistake, the rest just sort of swept me away. But eventually, I did manage to catch my breath.

  “What’s your name?” I finally asked, avoiding the question entirely. Margaret clicked her tongue, but remained silent. The boy paused, grabbing one of his trembling arms by his bicep.

  “I’m… I’m Vel,” he answered. “And you are?” I sighed.

  “Mars,” I answered quietly. “I’m sorry. I thought… I thought he was being controlled but…” I trailed off, unsure how to explain… anything.

  “You thought Dad was one of the baptized?” Vel guessed. I hadn’t heard the term, but I had experienced the baptism in question. It wasn’t hard to piece together what he meant. I offered him a soft nod. “Would that have been better? What did you do to him?” I opened my mouth to explain my time magic, but my grandmother’s phantom smirk gave me pause. People didn’t believe me about my magic. It was, ironically, only real to them in the present. As time passed, so did their willingness to believe in the magic I’d used right in front of them. I elected for a vague version of reality.

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  “It could have, if he were. I can save them, sometimes. Depending,” I answered. Depending on whether they died too early in past loops. Vel let out a deep breath.

  “Well. Thank you for trying,” he whispered. “But that was never going to work on Dad. He’s in full control of himself.” I winced, recognizing the bitter tone in his voice. I glanced around the dark home. There were no bodies in this room, but I knew we’d find one if we went into the bedroom. I turned and pulled the blinds into place over the window, and walked quietly to the dining room table.

  I glanced at the window meaningfully and gestured for Vel to follow. He awkwardly complied, sitting across from me. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?” Margaret asked. “We would have seen if the man had followed you. He doesn’t know where you are.” I frowned. She hadn’t seen what had happened when I was under Luke’s control. When I’d been baptized myself. She couldn’t understand why I was so afraid. She didn’t understand how close I came to trapping myself in… that. Forever, as far as I understood. Just hurting people, over and over, and over again, in a loop, without end. So I continued to ignore her, and I focused on the trembling boy in front of me.

  “Can you tell me?” I ask. “Can you explain what was happening?” Vel tensed.

  “I… I can. But will you still protect me? If I don’t?” He asked. I nodded.

  “I will,” I answered. I wanted to push more. I needed to know more. But I had drowned in the same helplessness he was choking on in that moment, and I knew better than to strangle him more. He watched me carefully.

  “Why did you come to my home?” he finally asked.

  “To help. You. Your father, I thought. Everyone connected to Luke. I want to stop him. If I can,” I answered.

  “Why? We’ll all be killed by the Quiet soon anyway. What’s the point?” he choked out. I bit my lip and looked down at my own fidgeting fingers.

  “Because,” I replied quietly. “Some things are worse than being hopeless.” Vel stared over my shoulder, at nothing in particular. And I stared over his—at the glaring eyes that had followed me since I’d left my grandmother behind.

  “Dad doesn’t believe in the Quiet,” Vel finally said. “He says living in fear of such a curse is a betrayal of Aethon. ‘A disgusting lack of faith,’ he calls it. He’s not alone in that. A lot of people refuse to accept what is happening to this town. The only thing my dad is afraid of… is the expectation of grief.” He paused, the shaking in his arms focusing on his fists for a moment, fear giving way to anger. “Mom has been dead for days. She died while serving dinner. But Dad… Dad had plans the next day. He had a dinner reservation with friends.”

  He didn’t speak for a long moment after that. Obviously overdue tears were building in his eyes, and I could see him fighting to choke back oncoming sobs for long enough to resume his story. The air was heavy for several long moments as he did this. But he took a loud, gasping breath and clenched his fists, then began to speak again.

  “The restaurant was closed. Because of the Quiet, I guess. And his friend didn’t want to do anything else. The man had apparently been pressured into the dinner itself, and didn’t have the heart to replace it with some other revelry. That’s what matters to him, you know?” Vel said. “His dead wife. His dying city. His hopeless future. He doesn’t acknowledge any of that. He doesn’t grieve for any of it. All of it is just a distraction from his fun little games and his shiny toys. None of it can be real, because if any of it is, he’d be expected to stop and grieve. He’d be expected to slow down and live in the sorrow of the moment. He couldn’t keep laughing like nothing was happening. He couldn’t dance and drink and revel without guilt. So it had to be false. It had to be fake. It had to be a lie spread by enemies of Aethon and rebellious children.”

  “The world can only be what makes her happy, and anything else is a lie,” I said under my breath. Vel had his elbows on the table with one fist in his other hand. His head was tilted down, but his eyes rose to meet mine as I spoke. There was an edge to them, not like a knife but like a cliffside. He nodded.

  “I wasn’t allowed to grieve either. That would be lying to my father. It would be disobedience. To him. To Aethon. I had to live with Mom’s body. To speak to it. To smile, and laugh, and hold her hand like she wasn’t a corpse. I wanted to die. I would have tried. Just to escape that home. I would have taken Luna’s gift in an instant. But I couldn’t. Because Dad isn’t alone. Because he’d taken me to his new church, and I’d seen the baptisms. And if I were caught. If I were caught grieving for even a moment. I knew what would happen to me,” Vel said. He gritted his teeth. “This Luke… he does have a lot of people under his control. He has managed to baptize a frightening number. And he gets to more every day.

  “But he couldn’t have done it alone. No. There are plenty of people like my father. People who care about two things. Their daily entertainment and the obedience of their children. People who will stoop to anything to maintain both. Who think Aethon’s name is a hammer to force nails into place and hold their paper houses together. Luke has baptized a lot of people, but only because he had enough followers like my dad. Only because there are enough people in this city who, with no magical influence at all, are willing to try and force us to ignore the death all around us. And those who want their children on strings. Those are the ones you have to be afraid of, Mars. If you are going to try and help, you need to understand that those are who you are up against.”

  Vel had grown more confident as he spoke. Or perhaps more angry. The abandoned home was beginning to feel safer, and rage and grief—suppressed for days—were bubbling like an over-boiled pot. He was right. Because I could save the baptized. But zealots? I was truly terrified of them.

  I opened my mouth to respond. To promise I wouldn’t let anyone like his father anywhere near him.

  But I was interrupted by the knock at the door.