Splinters of Light (36 page)

E
llie sighed and pressed ctrl-G to holster the knife. Addi jogged behind Dyl.

In-game, Dyl was all man, wide at the shoulder and thigh. He didn’t bounce on his toes like he did in real life—the computerized Dyl strode with authority. Ellie watched him jump two creeks in three bounds, his sword flashing at his hip. A thorny Velocirat attacked from under an Islan tree, and in less than a second, before Addi could even unsheathe her knife, he’d cut off its head with an exultant war cry.

If only they could go somewhere and fight things in real life together, instead of hanging out in Oakland bars, talking with his friends about stupid amps and their next unpaid gig.

Over there,
she typed.
That’s where the smoke came from. I have this idea . . .

Like a big, manly puppy, Dyl bounded over a ripple of flame that shot out of a hole in the ground. He stopped and swayed back and forth, waiting for Addi to tell him what to do next.

The week before, she’d asked him to meet her at Mills College. The acceptance letter had come and thank god she’d been the one to intercept the mail that day because she still hadn’t told her mother that she’d chosen to put in for early decision there and not at Smith. She’d used her own debit card for the application payment, and Mom hadn’t even noticed.

She was going to be
pissed
,
which, given the fact that she and Aunt Mariana still weren’t talking, wasn’t good.

But Ellie thought she might have a way around it. She was going to tell her mom about her acceptance as her Christmas present to her. No matter what, her mom couldn’t get mad about it if it were a gift, right?
Hey, Mom, I’m staying home. No, not to take care of you. Not at all.

Mills College was gorgeous, something she hadn’t expected it to be. She’d just assumed the brochure had lied. Dylan met her at the front of Mills Hall. “I can’t believe this is in the same city I live in,” he said.

She felt the same way. Because it was located in a rougher neighborhood in Oakland, she’d expected Mills to be two or three industrial-looking buildings surrounded by razor wire, the students protected by armed guards. Instead, after her two-hour public-transit commute, she’d walked onto campus with no more than a wave to the cheery guard in the shack.

The campus itself was huge, way bigger than she’d thought. Trees were everywhere, so many of them. Wide pathways wound through grass still lush even though it was cold now, and small groups of women weaved their way between Mills Hall and the building her map told her was the tea shop.

“Dude,” said Dylan. “This is awesome. You’re going to go here?”

“Yeah,” she said. It was the first time she’d said it out loud. “I am.”

He took her hand, and she felt somehow embarrassed. This was a school full of feminists. Would they look at her and know she was
in high school? That she was looking at the campus with her boyfriend, like she was too much of a baby do it herself? She pointed at a fat squirrel, using the opportunity to take her hand back.

Mills Hall was three stories, with a fourth, smaller, cupola-like story on top. She’d read in the brochure that it had once been the only building on campus, back when this was still out in the country, and that in the late 1800s, the hall was where the students lived. Now, a century and a half later, it held classrooms and office space for professors, but looking up at the narrow windows, Ellie could imagine girls running up and down the halls in their long dresses, calling out to one another the same way they were doing all around her.

“My brother said only lesbians go here.”

Ellie’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

Dylan grinned. “No, that’s not a bad thing. You know, the four-year-plan. Isn’t that what happens here? No guys, right?”

Two men walked by as he said this, and the taller one gave an exaggerated eye roll.

Ellie hissed, “The international and graduate programs allow men.”

“Still,” he said, leaning back and looking up at the windows sparkling in the sun, “you should go for it if you get the chance.”

“Seriously?” Ellie wished she’d asked her mother to come with her instead of him. Mom would have loved the long expanses of rich, verdant lawn and the way the light blue sky looked almost fake against the dark green of the trees.

Dylan had gotten a little better while they followed a campus guide on the tour, keeping his comments to himself, texting his bandmates as they walked. They’d had lunch at the tea shop. He’d looked over the course brochures with something very close to excitement.

And all Ellie could think was,
What if I was wrong about him?
How could she trust herself if she’d gotten something so essential wrong?

Now, at home, she sat on the couch with her laptop on her knees while her mother banged reassuringly around in the kitchen. Ellie watched Dyl thump a clod of dirt with his battle-ax.
This was where you saw the smoke? Coming out of the ground?

Yeah
. Addi used an earthen spell to move the dirt much more efficiently than Dyl’s ax could.
Just give me a sec.

A reddish glare rose out of the hole she was making, startling her into leaning forward. Two brilliant puffs of gold smoke followed by smaller puffs of purple started belching out of the ground.

What? This couldn’t be . . .

Ellie hit the keyboard harder. Could it . . . ?
Holy shit.

This was it. Excitement stung the back of Ellie’s eyes and her breath came faster. Sparkles flew upward into the green-black sky.

This was it.
This
was where Ulra had hidden her cache of eggs. More than a hundred thousand players worldwide, and no one had found this but them. But her.

We did it!
he typed.

No.

She’d done it.

Carefully, she tugged a spider’s web off a troche bush and made it into a net that she lowered into the hole. Ctrl-K to drop it in, ctrl-J to pull it up, and Addi held a perfect dragon’s egg in her hands. Ellie could practically feel its warmth.

Can I get the next one?

Go,
she said.
Away.

What?

I need you to leave.

Ha.

I’m not kidding.

Ellie?

If you touch one of these eggs, I will kill you.

Dyl took a step backward, and then another one. His sword remained at his side, but Addi kept her left hand on her knife, just in case.

What’s going on? Ellie?

She waited.

Ellie, what’s the problem? Can I help?

She didn’t have a problem. She had a solution.

Ulra was sick. Only a Healer could fix her, a great healer. If she raised these broodlings herself out here on the edge of the game, if she kept them safe and learned their secrets, she would be—by default—the greatest Healer in
Queendom
. Then she could save Ulra. Ellie had no idea how she hadn’t thought of it before, but it was as plain as day before her now.

Pain twisted in Ellie’s chest, stabbed behind her eyes. Tears ran down her face, and they weren’t about sending Dyl the Incurser away.

Dyl the Incurser was done. And she was, sadly, done with Dylan the man.

Only Ulra mattered. How had she not seen that before?

Ellie could almost hear the incredulity in Dylan’s typed words.
You know I’m a fighter. You shouldn’t threaten me like that, even if you’re kidding.

It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. If he came between her and the cure for the Queen, he would die, and when he rerolled, she wouldn’t accept his offer of Friending. She wasn’t a great fighter, but she was better than she used to be. She knew both his moves and his weaknesses.

And now she knew what she was fighting for. It was more—so much more—than a story she’d helped write. Somehow, she was fighting for herself, suddenly, and it fucking
mattered.
She mattered the most. And she was a Glass, goddamn it. She was strong.

Addi cradled the egg more carefully and watched Dyl trudge away. He threw fireballs into the sky, his in-game invention. If you threw them high enough, they exploded above and hung there, drifting down so slowly they looked like a boat’s flare. He was doing it on purpose, drawing attention to their hidden world’s edge.

It was okay.

She would fight everyone. And she would win.

“Do you think we should have steak for dinner? Have we had that recently?” her mother called from the kitchen. She stuck her head through the arch that led into the living room. “Are you . . . baby, are you crying?”

Instead of closing the computer, instead of lying, instead of making sure her mother didn’t see her screen, didn’t see what had made her cry, Ellie felt the sobs come harder. Her stomach hurt like she had the flu, and she hoped she wasn’t going to throw up.

Mom sat on the couch next to her, folding the afghan around them carefully. She wrapped her arms tight around Ellie. “Is it Dylan?”

“No,” Ellie choked. “But I’m going to break up with him.” The words made her cry harder, and she hiccuped violently, something she usually did while laughing her ass off, not crying like a baby.

“Why?”

“Because.”
Because I got it so wrong. I didn’t see what was important.

“So you’re breaking up with him, but that’s not why you’re crying?” Her mother sounded confused, and Ellie didn’t blame her.

“No . . .”

“Is it Smith? Did you hear back?”

Ellie shook her head, feeling tears roll down her cheeks. She gestured toward her laptop.

“Want to show me?”

She did, but she didn’t know how to explain it. It was too big, too important. It wasn’t just a game.

“It’s the game . . . The game.”

Her mother waited.

“I found the eggs. The Queen’s eggs. I think they’re the key to . . .”

Her mother sat next to her, her arm still around Ellie. So warm.

“I think they’re the key to healing her.”

There was a long pause. “The Queen is sick?”

Ellie buried her face in her hands. It wasn’t fair, to cry like this in front of Mom. She’d done so well at
not
doing that, and now she was blowing all of it. Mom needed to be perked up, not brought down by a sobbing daughter who was upset about a dumb
game
.

But her mother didn’t seem to mind. Gently, she pulled Ellie’s hands away from her face. “You can fix her,” she whispered.

Pain shot down Ellie’s legs right to her feet and back up again to her heart. This was so
stupid
. Neither Ellie nor Addi could fix a damn thing. Nothing. They were useless. She had no strength, no power.

“You know why I think that?”

Ellie shook her head. She held the afghan so tightly between her fingers that they ached.

“Because you fix me every day. You might not be able to
save
me, or your Queen. But you fix us all the time, my heart. All the time.”

She
didn’t
.
She couldn’t. Only one person had that kind of connection with Mom. “You have to make up with Aunt Mariana.”

Her mother started to speak, then coughed. She’d been doing more of that lately. “This is about you and me, Ellie.”

“But you and her are more important.”

Her mother looked surprised. “What?”

“She’s your sister.”

Frowning, her mother said, “You’re my
daughter
.”

Ellie needed her to know it was okay. That she understood. “You two have been together since birth. I get it.”

Her mother rocked backward, pushing her hair out of her face. “Do you somehow . . . do you think she’s more important to me?”

The tears burned again, and Ellie took a choked breath. “No.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Oh, baby. Oh, no. It’s different.”

Ellie knew it was different. It was fine. It really was.

“Ellie . . .”

Great, now she’d made her mother cry.
Good work.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Ellie, you’re the reason I’m alive. When I first . . . God, this is so hard to say, but . . . when I was first diagnosed, I thought about killing myself. I thought about it a lot.” Her mother’s voice cracked, dry. “Mariana would have been okay, with enough time. She would have understood, I think. You, though. I couldn’t do that to
you
.
And more selfishly, I wanted more of you. More time with my baby. If I didn’t have you—honey, if you weren’t here? There would be no point. To anything. Ever again.”

The words were like water falling on parched earth. Ellie felt herself soak them up and wanted more, but that would be selfish, and it wasn’t true anyway. She should be angry that her mother had thought about suicide, and later she probably would be. But at that moment she couldn’t help saying, “Really?”

“Really. My sister is part of me. We came into this world as
a package deal, and that has pros and cons, just like anything else. But you are
you
. You’re totally yourself, standing on your own two feet, totally perfect, and all I want to do is to be near you. Wherever you are. No matter what.” She took a deep breath and Ellie echoed it, drawing in the same air. “And no matter where I am, no matter where that is or what happens to me, I’ll be near you.” Tears slid slowly down her mother’s face. “I promise.”

Ellie leaned against her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t fit like she had when she was a child. But she still fit. Her breath felt easier in her lungs. “Make it right. With Aunt Mariana.”

“I made her really mad, chipmunk. I thought I knew her and I didn’t, and that was my fault. I wasn’t looking. I assumed she was just like me, and I was really wrong about a lot of things.”

“So
fix
it.”

Mom’s arms tightened around her. “Sometimes we can’t fix everything.”

“Yes,” said Ellie with every bit of stubbornness she’d ever possessed. “We
can
. We’re Glasses. Remember lemon and honey? Use that.”

“Tea? I should make her tea?”

“Whatever. Do something that shows you mean it. That you didn’t mean to hurt her.”

The kiss her mother pressed to her forehead felt like agreement.