Blue power surges up the centre of the sword; volts of light streaming through the thin gouges between each puzzle piece before the handle begins to shift.

  The ornate wrapping doubling as the weapon’s guard opens like a ribcage around the eye before the iris itself shifts outward a few inches, unlatching open around plumes of white steam to reveal a large indent roughly the size of the heart the girl holds.

  Roach hovers before drifting closer but never quite places the opal into the wanting socket. Still, with every deliberate closing of space, the sword flares brighter and begins to shake against the hanger until the blue is also a halo around the blade, and intricate patterns of cerulean brightly web out over the flat face like arteries pulsing with life.

  Rivin’s jaw must be on the floor, but he clamps it quickly shut once the girl draws away her hand. The sword goes still, and the energy flits into nothing.

  Just as quickly as the magic had bloomed, it had died.

  “You usually have to break ’em down for weapons.” Roach seems to be boasting, chest puffed out as she explains, “But this here blade takes a full heart. No risk of instantaneous death guaranteed!” She nods her head vehemently, throwing a thumbs up before continuing.

  “This little guy—” she turns away from the wall to hold up the opal—moving far too quickly for his throbbing head. “—Will power any regular Seraph scrap, like that pretty little sword of yours,” she gestures towards the table where Rivin’s pride lay abandoned.

  He grits his teeth. Frowns. “Don’t call it that.”

  Roach grins, making her way over. “You see—when you break it down, it’s stable. Less powerful, sure. But stable.” She sits on the rim of and pulls his blade from the sheath to rest flat across her lap.

  Rivin’s not sure why he lets her. He never lets anyone touch his sword.

  To his surprise — or maybe not — it too begins to glow. Sparks that have only ever seemed pitiful before begin to zigzag excitedly up the length, gears shifting quickly beneath the rippled grip.

  “It doesn’t last. Even drones need replacements; all their heart does really is power that fun little laser. The rest is regular old machinery and code. Impressive but—” she pauses, rolling the opal over her palm with her fingers, “unremarkable.”

  Rivin is watching closely now, studying the way the sword unhinges like a mechanical device; the razor of his plenty-polished edge begins to undulate and crease while the guard spews a radiating reflection. Rivin can see both Roach’s grin and his own shocked expression in the ripple.

  “Skyfat can utilise,” she grins a dangerous smile, “but they can’t maximise. Not yet.” Something sullen flickers across her face, gone too quickly for Rivin to catch. “Not like he could.”

  Unlike the greatsword with its eyes, it’s the pommel of Rivin’s blade that comes unhinged. She presses the opal into the socket, and the blade flashes, surging within her grip. Her free hand holds it tightly, struggling against a violent and awakened rattle.

  The sword looks ready to blow — the light filling up the room. Sparks shoot out — he watches as parts of her braid are singed. Her eyes reflect the electrical storm, wide, so wide, her pupils enormous black pits that soak it all in greedily.

  Concern begins to win over curiosity, but the surge doesn’t grow any further. The blade is incomplete. It doesn’t fit. The orb is at least a centimetre too big to hold still in the divot, and when Roach pulls it away, stillness once more reigns supreme.

  Rivin blinks away the blur, stars curling around the edges of his vision.

  Roach clicks her teeth. “We’d probably be dead if it fit.”

  “Good thing it didn’t.” “

  “This is a big boy, I’m surprised it’s not been cracked open and repurposed already.” Again, she holds it up to study. “They keep crackin’ and hackin’ and stuffing crumbs into an engine that runs on pure power…” Her gaze twinkles. Rivin’s falls to the floor. “Soon enough they’ll jus’ be smackin’ regular old swords again.” She gestures to his. “You get yours recently?”

  Rivin shrugs. “Won it in a fight.”

  “The pocket is small. You’d be recharging this daily.”

  He shrugs. “Don’t need to. Still cuts.”

  She smiles, softer this time, as though he’s said something profound or entertaining. It’s a moment before she speaks again. “Hm. Pocket what you like; see if it makes up for what you’ve lost.”

  She sets his blade aside.

  Unbeknownst to her, Rivin’s heart is splitting open. He glances at the wall again, the biting metal and bone. The necklace is still heavy in his pocket. He tenses his jaw. The bombs in their tri-coloured jackets, the blades strung up and awaiting his eager touch, the observatory nestled in the pits of the earth, the sun that flashed even deeper, the ghosts still caught in endless war —all that he’s seen, all that he’s witnessed —

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  Does any of it fill the void? Does it make up for it?

  For… her?

  He’s not sure. He’s really not sure, but he can hear that fucking gurgle again, and there’s something falling in the dark, but he’s only dreaming, only dreaming—focus on the drip. Drip. Drip.

  He’s almost home, but there’s a part of him that’s growing more and more frightened of waking up—

  Will he feel it? Her absence?

  He knows the answer, knows what awaits him.

  He wants to dream a while longer.

  Is that selfish? He is selfish. This is all his fault. He doesn’t deserve to linger. He’s the most selfish —

  “Maybe we could rest here a while.”

  He hates himself.

  “Good call, cadet.” Roach kicks off the table, flicking the opal between her fingers so that it shoots towards him. Rivin catches it against his chest just as she darts towards the shelves, scooping tins into her arms and dropping them onto the table before flitting away once more.

  Rivin palms the opal for a moment before dropping it back into his pocket. His slate eyes follow her desperately—he’s finding it easier to be distracted by her than the leak. When he doesn’t move, she deposits a recently opened can, with a spoon lodged into cold soup, into his grasp. She purposely wraps his bandaged fingers tightly around it before sweeping behind him and pushing him towards the spiral staircase leading to the second floor.

  “Too wet down here,” she explains, continuing to prod even once he starts moving willingly.

  “I’m going, I’m going!”

  Roach darts ahead to scramble up the steps, and for the first time in hours, Rivin is alone in a room.

  His cramping fingers pad the skirting rail as the quiet seeps in. The silence doesn’t last long, for her footfalls echo above, but even that brief quiet lets the cold settle deep in his belly.

  He tightens his grip and bites back the tension of all that’s been building to quickly ascend the stairs.

  At the top he finds a mostly teal room with a dome-shaped ceiling, webbed with ancient cracks and bottle-cap artwork. Someone, likely the girl at the centre, has scribbled stars and planets across the roof, all of which surround an enormous telescope peering through a slim crack. Old blankets and pillows galore are huddled at the base where the eye is: the padding for a stargazer of rock.

  Roach is already shaking out the sheets and beating out the feathers, her pack unloaded in the corner. It’s a stark difference from the military bunker underneath, much like the chaos of her home.

  Would this count as a childhood bedroom? He isn’t sure, but she looks cosy enough as she settles into the mound of cotton and softness, grinning toothily as she holds out the corner of a blanket in offering.

  Rivin takes it, careful of the cold soup as he comes to settle himself across from her, rearranging pillows under his back. Without any prompting, she props up his sore ankle, stacking cushions beneath. He doesn’t thank her out loud but manages a nod, eyes quickly flitting away.

  He’s still not used to being helped. He’s not sure that will ever change.

  Roach doesn’t seem to mind, quickly burying half her body into the pillows while Rivin busies himself with dinner. It tastes like swamp and bog, but there are some vegetables and meat mixed in, and so he makes sure to finish it completely before setting the empty tin aside.

  There’s a moment of quiet between them, and Rivin can hear the steam outside pluming over the damp walls, exciting the whispers of the slugs on the ceiling. Something scuttles in the dark and then again in the light — he can’t name it.

  He turns his eyes towards the half-vanished girl; her feet are grubby and covered in moss she’s not kicked off yet. Her eyes, of course, are already on him. Warm. Friendly. Like they’ve shared something special.

  Rivin looks down at his hands. “Where’d that other tunnel lead? The one at the fork?” He knows the answer. He’s not sure why he’s bringing it up now. He wonders why he even asks.

  “You can guess.”

  “Why’d you avoid it?”

  Her face — pulled somewhere far and deep, just long enough for him to catch the tender memory blooming in her amber eyes. It’s quick and drags her gaze towards his torso — this time not to his wounds, but rather to the faces printed on the front of his shirt.

  “Not ready yet. Thought we were.”

  He catches it. We. The quiet stretches. “Who was he?”

  The child begins to fold in on herself, sinking deeper into fabric and turning tighter into damp cushion. She looks away to stare at a stationary meteorite painted and streaking across the ceiling. “Dumb,” she begins — but it doesn’t sound like an insult. “And brave.” She pulls at a loose thread and examines it between her fingers, “and kind.”

  The pause that follows after is a moment of hearts simply beating. Of gentle breath. “Gone…” Rivin finishes.

  Gone like everyone goes. Gone like Mouse.

  Roach shakes her head, dropping the thread in favour of the fingerbone tethered to her hair. She brings it up to her face and strokes it tenderly. Reverent. “Not gone.”

  Rivin stares at her. He’s not sure what to say. Not sure what she means by anything. He’s still trying to figure her out. She doesn’t help, only closes her eyes and steals the blanket nearest to his thigh, pulling it up to her chin.

  “No more questions, Cap’n Curious. This was your idea, remember?” She smacks her lips together sleepily, “Get some rest.”

  Rivin huffs but leans back, turns his head towards the ceiling and studies the stars. When he looks at her again, the girl appears to already have fallen asleep.

  It’s hard in moments such as these to see her as a guide — as the mythical little thing that scathes the cliffs above warring ghosts. She only ever looks like a child when she sleeps, and yet still he wonders for a moment too long if she’s even real. If maybe she’s not just something he’s made up to cope with the pain and the loss.

  Maybe she’s a hallucination. Maybe she’s the dream and not the world he’s entered.

  He pinches himself just to be sure, but she doesn’t disappear, only snorts and kicks out one leg from beneath the sheets, rolling over to scratch at her exposed belly. Rivin feels his lips twitch again, and he only looks away once he gently noses the tip of his boot against her bare and filthy foot.

  Something to tether him. Something real, he’s decided, in a way he doesn’t understand yet and in a way that doesn’t make sense when she is so different.

  When he finally closes his eyes, he can still hear the whisperslugs cooing in the walls and the water dripping somewhere down below. Roach’s gentle breathing is accompanied only by the echo of a man’s gravelly voice and the chants of a language long since lost.

  ‘Look at it sideways.’

  ‘This is my favourite part.’

  A wet gurgle in his ear.

  Rivin tosses and turns.

  When the darkness takes him, it isn’t the drip or the whispers that steady him.

  It’s the mossy weight of her foot pressed clumsily to his own — tethering him.

  That night, she finds her way into his dreams, and when the Knight steals the sun, she throws out her hand for him to hold so that the shadow can devour them together one last time.