Matt, lacking the foggiest idea of what time it might be, made his way back to the High School library and found Lana almost an hour ahead of schedule. They spoke offhandedly for a moment, but Matt left to find a book as soon as Lana made it clear that his presence was a burden on her learning. He wasn’t insulted - he had also needed absolute silence to study well on Earth - but her tone irked him.

  Maybe her tone was fine. Maybe it was just what had happened with Rachel at the cafe.

  He eventually settled on a heavy tome labeled Not All Gone and sat with it a few seats away from Lana. He skimmed the synopsis on the inside cover, not really reading any of it, then opened it up to the preface.

  Modern wizardry may no longer be the religious scourge of humanity it once was. However, to outlaw anything invites its practice in the shadows, beneath the gaze of those who decry it. This collection of essays, above all else, explores the inherent dangers of a society petrified by fear of the dark language, and argues that the criminalization of wizardry has only increased the danger that the dark language poses to the people of Lyrian.

  Matt blinked, remembering what Rachel had said. Tassel, for all he knew, was nowhere to be found in the library, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to believe that he had quietly snuck out the night before.

  What could Tassel be doing?

  And what did he need Rachel for?

  Matt read through the rest of the preface before taking a deep, slow breath and raising his gaze from the book. He glanced around the library - thankfully, the Ledge gave him a near- omniscient view - and his gaze locked onto a familiar head of red hair as it entered the library from a side entrance to his left. He stood up and replaced his book on the shelf, then stood waiting at the top of the stairs. Rachel would know where to look for him.

  It came to his mind then that he had assumed that Rachel would want to see him. Even more, he had somehow made up his mind that he still wanted to see her.

  Rachel reached the top of the stairs and found Matt instantly. She strode forward and motioned to a dark reading cubby to her right, wordlessly leading him into what he could only imagine would be a grueling conversation. She spoke under her breath as they entered the cubby, lighting three candles that sat on a small central table. Matt found a cushion near the flame and sat down as Rachel did the same, sitting diagonally to him so they would not be conversing through the candlelight.

  “Hi,” Rachel said almost timidly.

  Matt bit the inside of his lower lip. “Hi, Rachel.”

  “Look, I’m-” Rachel started, then paused. “I’m sorry about today. I never wanted to be like this.”

  Then don’t be, Matt thought. “You apologized this morning. Look how far that got us.”

  “Okay, we were friends for almost two whole hours,” Rachel reasoned, trying to lighten the mood. “That’s probably a new record.”

  Matt sighed. “You just don’t get it, do you? I left my life for this. My family.”

  “So did I,” Rachel sighed.

  Matt shook his head. “No. Not the same. I left because my life sucked, Rachel. My mom left. My dad’s an alcoholic. My best friend killed himself. I left because I didn’t think it could get any worse.”

  Rachel did not immediately reply, and Matt felt her shiver through the space between them. He felt a sudden urge to apologize, to go to her and tell her that he hadn’t meant it.

  But he had meant it. And he was sick of pretending he didn’t.

  “It can always get worse,” Rachel murmured reluctantly.

  Matt closed his eyes and sighed. “I know. It’s not like I didn’t know this would be a risk. I just… didn’t expect you to…”

  He trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought. He had said enough.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Rachel admitted. “I never used to be like this. I never want to treat you-”

  “Then figure yourself out,” Matt interjected. “It’s not my job to fix you. I’m sick of throwing myself at you to try to make a change.”

  Matt hated the fact that he still wanted to give her another chance. He still felt something, even under the weight of everything she had done. He hated how easy it would be for Rachel to tell him it would all get better, and for him to forgive her in spite of it all. He hated how easy he was.

  “And maybe I’m a lost cause,” Rachel sighed. “It’s almost a consolation prize that you believed I could get better long after I had given up. I just… I’m so angry at myself, and you don’t even know-”

  “Don’t ever give up on yourself,” Matt rushed, tension tearing his cheeks taut. “I don’t want to give up on you either, but I can’t keep doing this if you don’t think it can be done.”

  Rachel was silent for what felt like hours. She took breath after breath, and Matt could almost feel the emotions warring in her head. The air in the cubicle felt cold, yet heavy, like it was a piece of solid sky waiting for the smallest trigger to come crashing down. The candlelight frolicked over Rachel’s face, flashing her spattering of freckles in and out of view like stars over a searchlight. Her eyes glinted in liquid amber, wetness rising and falling in their depths without ever quite breaking free.

  “Give up,” Rachel whispered. “You can’t trust me.”

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  “I never said I trusted you,” Matt murmured, sliding closer to Rachel. “But I’ll be here until I can, if you’ll let me.”

  Rachel leaned towards him, then stopped abruptly and pulled back. “No. No, you-”

  “Rachel.” Matt locked eyes with her. “Look at me. This starts now, or it ends now. I want this. I do. But-”

  “I want this too,” Rachel fretted. “But I… I can’t.”

  Matt almost reached out to her, but managed to hold himself back. He could feel the air between them as if it were fire, threatening to grow, to lick at their clothes and skin and hair until neither of them could bear to look at the other.

  Somehow, Matt knew that whatever didn’t happen now would never happen again.

  “We can start again,” he tried. “It doesn’t ever have to feel like this.”

  Rachel, hesitating, closed the gap between them and rested her shoulder against his. The tiny hairs on his skin pricked up around the warmth of her touch, as did his heartbeat. He took a deep, quiet breath, forcing his heart to slow before Rachel noticed, but he had no success. His senses heightened, blocking out everything but the here, the now, around the flickering candlelight in this shadowed corner of the library.

  He reached out and rested his hand around her upper arm. She tensed for a moment so brief it could easily have been his imagination. A knot built in his throat, not for regret but for anticipation, flooding his nerves with the insatiable urge to do something, anything, if it would just stop this silent waiting. The moment teetered on the edge of a great precipice, and to decide to which side it would fall…

  Rachel stilled underneath his touch. Matt squeezed her arm gently, then gave it a surreptitious tug towards him. Rachel shifted, then slid her free arm across his chest and to his hip. She twisted to face him, leaning over him and resting her forearm across his legs. They looked at each other then - really looked - and Rachel’s eyes told Matt everything he could know before she even opened her mouth to speak.

  He reached out to cup the back of Rachel’s head and pulled her into him. She let him guide her, but dodged to the side before their lips could touch. Her embrace hit him with the force of a car crash, as welcome as it was uncertain, as disappointing as it was hopeful. He squeezed her tightly, hoping for a reaction, needing one. She nestled into him, though it seemed less like a romantic gesture than an attempt to hide, even to disappear.

  Rachel began to shake silently, softly, grounding herself against Matt’s chest. Matt sighed quietly and rubbed her back with his thumb, still holding her as if she were the last human in the world. He let her disappear into him, and felt after a moment a telltale wetness against his chest, growing slowly as Rachel cried silently against him. He loosened his grip on her back and shifted his left hand to the back of her neck, then gently took hold of it and guided her head back until she was looking up at him.

  “Hey,” he murmured. “I’m here. Whatever you’re going through… you don’t have to do it alone.”

  Rachel wiped the back of her wrist across her nose. “Yeah, I do.”

  Matt shook his head vehemently. “Why would you say that?”

  Rachel’s breath caught once, then twice. “I’ve… known something. For a long time. Since Fortaim.”

  An anvil dropped in Matt’s gut.

  “It’ll be okay,” Matt whispered, suddenly not sure whether or not he was lying.

  Rachel shook her head, mussing up her hair against Matt’s shirt. “It’s about Jason.”

  The weight in Matt’s stomach grew heavier. After a moment’s hesitation, he let go of Rachel and pulled away, feeling no less of a cataclysm than a volcanic eruption shredding the connection between them. Immediately, he wanted it back, but it was too late now as Rachel took the hint and pulled away from him until nothing touched at all, until the air between them grew cold, distant, still.

  “I was stupid,” Rachel started. “I was blinded. By hope, I guess. You gave me a reason to return, and I… I didn’t even think.”

  Matt steeled himself, feeling the urge to go to her again pulsing like a slow-motion heartbeat and pushing it down, down, down. “What happened to Jason?”

  Rachel let out a tormented sigh. “Nothing as far as I know. He grew up. Had children. Or…”

  Matt frowned, suddenly very confused. “Hold on. What are you talking about?”

  “Matt, time between Earth and Lyrian is inconstant,” Rachel said, enunciating each word as if it caused her great pain to speak at all. “I should have known.”

  Matt leaned forward before Rachel could continue. “God, Rachel. You’re telling me he’s not even here? You’re telling me we missed his proper time?”

  Rachel bit her lip and nodded, fresh tears winding their way down her splotchy face. “We missed. Badly.”

  Matt pushed himself to his feet and leaned heavily against a bookshelf, hardly believing what he was hearing. “How do I know that this isn’t just another lie?”

  “Because Jason’s daughter did the same time skip that I did,” Rachel said, recovering. “Remember the stablewoman?”

  Rachel might have said something else, but Matt was no longer listening. Blood pounded in his ears, with anger, with shame. All this time, he had trusted Rachel to bring him to his best friend. He had trusted her to… he didn’t even know.

  He had wanted her.

  “I can’t believe this,” he spat, fuming. “You knew I trusted you.”

  “I did tell you not to,” she reasoned, which only made Matt angrier.

  “Fuck you,” Matt raged, turning away before Rachel could see the tears threatening in the corners of his eyes. “You led me all the way here just to rip my heart out. I can’t go home, Rachel. I thought I could build something here, something better. With you.”

  “So did I!” Rachel exploded, shooting to her feet so quickly that she swooned into a bookshelf as the blood rushed to her head. “You think I wanted to be here? Now? A thousand goddamn years in the past?”

  Matt almost replied, but out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement. He whirled and nearly bowled into Lana, who was standing, wide-eyed, at the mouth of the cubicle.

  “You’re…” Lana trailed off in shock.

  Matt stormed out of the cubicle, taking Lana’s arm and dragging her with him. She yelped and struggled, freeing herself almost instantly.

  “Lana,” Matt ordered before she could run. “What you heard does not leave this room.”

  “Your friend is a fucking-” Lana shrieked.

  Matt slapped a hand over her mouth and dropped his voice to a cutting whisper. “If she really is from the future, what she knows will make her very dangerous. Leave now with me or leave with Rachel. Do not leave alone.”

  Lana shoved him away with enough force to send him stumbling backwards. “Get away from me.”

  So, with a single backwards glance, that was what he did. He ran to the stairs, out of the library, away from the High School and into the city. He kept running as everything blurred around him, with speed and with tears, until the city absorbed him. He kept running until everything finally caught up and was real, and Rachel had lied, and he would never see Jason or his family or his hometown again.

  And when he could run no more, he crumpled against a weather-worn stone brick building, threw his head into his hands and cried as the weight of the world sloughed over him, crushing him, suffocating him, welcoming him.