For how badly Evelyn wanted to push any happy thoughts away, there was still a certain beauty to the world beyond. Rolling hills of white pressed against mountains proudly baring their gray skin. Needle-like trees clothed their bases, while snow wrapped over their craggy peaks. Evelyn spent hours picking out details she felt didn’t belong.

  “Everything used to be green,” she said once, when the first mountain range ended and only white stretched as far as the eye could see. “Except during winter. We threw snowballs at each other. It was fun.”

  She smiled wistfully. Whoever she’d played with was long gone, but their memory left a warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest.

  “I have archived footage of the world pre-Change. Your memory of this land once being green is corroborated,” Aster said.

  Unlike her, who remained strapped to her seat, he unbuckled himself and was statuesque, feet planted on the floor, body pointed straight ahead. The only clue he was still alert was the steady hum of his body while he churned away thoughts.

  Or at least, Evelyn thought so. Those were the first words either of them uttered since their escape.

  “Was it pretty?” Aurora said. She, too, had been silent the entire trip, focused on piloting the ship back toward her hideout.

  Evelyn threaded her fingers together. “It was beautiful.”

  Was. Not is. The pain of loss ran deeper than any physical wound. It reached up with its grubby hands and held her heart hostage. No amount of gray goo could convince her to let it all go.

  Instead, she had to be content stewing in her thoughts. They came and went like ghosts, hard to conceptualize, harder still to capture as a still image. She wondered if Aster had his own ghosts to deal with. Or maybe he already did. After all, he was thousands of years old. Trapped. Alone. With no one to talk to while all the humans rotted away inside their pods.

  She had the luxury of being unconscious, at least. Was this what he felt? The anguish of knowing things could never turn back, that there was only one way forward and that was to survive at any cost? Maybe they weren’t so different.

  “I wish I was there to see it,” Aurora said. “So much was lost then.”

  “What’s the world like now?” Evelyn said.

  Aurora made a circling motion with her wrist. The top-right screen displayed a mountain, standing firm against the endless expanse of white. Numbers ran down the screen. She tapped at the air several times and Evelyn was gently pressed against her seat as they slowed.

  “Some parts grew worse. Some grew better. Some are simply breathtaking,” Aurora said. “I would love to show you sometime.”

  One moment, the screens revealed mountains, trees, and snow. Next, they plunged into darkness. Only the center screen remained active, filled with numbers flashing rapidly, along with vectors and other shapes too complex to name. Aurora paid rapt attention, making quick motions with her hands that were dizzying to watch.

  Evelyn suddenly bounced against her buckles while Aster remained rooted in place. A sound like a shrill, muffled whine leaked inside. Aurora stood and gestured at the screens. They began to piece together a grainy image of shadowy cave walls looming around them.

  “We’ve arrived,” she said. “Are you ready, Evelyn?”

  She gave a weary thumbs-up. “I’m ready.”

  Aster said nothing. Aurora made a chopping motion with her hands, and lilac floated out her fingers and soaked into the hull. Hexagons flashed. The side of the ship peeled away, and a ramp descended from the floor and anchored itself to the rocky terrain outside.

  Evelyn tested its weight with one foot. Satisfied, she walked out, followed by Aster, and then Aurora. They were inside a vast cavern bristling with stalagmite and stalactite teeth. Bands of milky minerals glittered like stars in the walls and floor. Moss hung in tangled ropes and diffused a soft blue light over the cavern. It was cool and damp, a perfect retreat from the icy conditions outside.

  “This place looks nice,” Evelyn said. She ran her fingers through some moss. It was soft and velvety, tickling her fingers, leaving behind the pleasant aroma of freshly cut grass.

  Aster guided her hand away. “Do not interact with unknown life forms, Evelyn. We do not have enough data to verify it is safe.”

  She rubbed her hand. It still smelled good. “It’s safe! I feel fine.” She jerked her thumb toward Aurora. “We’re with her, and she counts as an unknown life form, doesn’t she? I haven’t died or gone crazy or anything like that.”

  “Effects could be delayed.” Aster raised his index finger. Its tip popped open, and a tiny blade cut through some moss and dropped it into his palm. “For future analysis,” he explained. He opened another compartment in his hip and dropped the sample inside.

  Evelyn pouted and raised her hands in exasperation. She kicked at the ground and wiped off her hand on her white suit. “Okay, fine.”

  They stood on a thick sheet of rock. Stalactites rose further down the cave. Its bottom was illuminated by blue lichens and tadpole-like fish swimming inside a dark pool. Aurora led them close to the wall. Swirls of lilac flickered from her hands, probing crevasses until they stopped at one.

  The ashy remains of a firepit sat still and dark outside. Inside, pots and utensils were stacked on a table. Cans were set side by side on the floor. A chair was knocked down near a bookshelf, holding titles written in a cursive, loop-filled language. Several fist-sized crystals stuck to the walls cast a warm, golden glow over everything.

  It wasn’t much. Aurora clearly tried to make it home. Evelyn wouldn’t mind spending a few days hunkering in this quiet, private space while the creatures and machines tore each other to pieces.

  “Is that it?” Aster said. There was no malice to his tone. She wasn’t sure if he could change it except for the volume. Every word he spoke came out like an elevator’s soft chime.

  Still, Aurora wrinkled her nose in displeasure. “Was I supposed to bring a suite?”

  “I apologize for the implied sarcasm.” His joints creaked as he swept his arm out. “What I mean is that this is tolerable. Any compliment beyond that would be a lie.”

  “Thank you for the honesty.”

  Evelyn rushed straight to the books. She wasn’t sure why, but they made her feel good seeing them. She traced their spines. Cool to the touch, their glossy surfaces felt untouched by time. “Can I open these?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Aurora said. “This is your home, too. You can go through them all you’d like while I prepare a nice stew for dinner.”

  Evelyn nodded and slid out the first book. She cracked it open and savored the whiff of old pages and leather. Yes, she loved books once. She was a voracious reader, driven by a burning desire to learn everything she could.

  Another memory appeared. She sat inside a library. A vaulted ceiling stretched from room to room, hallway to hallway. Bookshelves wrapped around pillars and hugged the walls, while sconces burned bright and steady. Somebody was there, too, silhouetted against a sconce, waving a tattooed muscular arm. A long sleeve hung from its wrist. She waved back, and suddenly she was lifted off her feet and swung around in circles, lights blurring into a halo, tears staining her eyes while she laughed with sheer, unbridled joy, staring into piercing blue eyes.

  Evelyn blinked, and she was thrust back into the present, still holding the book. Her hand shook. Now was not the time to break down.

  She studied the book instead. The first page was filled with the same loopy, cursive writing. It was beautiful, but so, so alien. Changed much like the rest.

  Thinking, independent robots didn’t exist before, she was sure. Much less whatever Aurora had. Magic? It was supposed to be impossible. Magic belonged to dreams and madness, the product of a mind unanchored from reality, wanting to free itself from arbitrary rules. Magic was confined to books and movies, shows and music. It kept people at ease from a world that was changing too fast, too much.

  Evelyn rubbed her eyes. Those thoughts didn’t belong to her. Or if they did, she wasn’t sure why she thought that. She simply accepted them. Much like she accepted that magic at some point transcended the realm of fiction into reality. Aurora was living proof. And who was Evelyn to deny what her senses told her?

  She thumbed through the remaining pages. Some contained images of fantastical creatures, like a frilly, bipedal lizard, or a humanoid, scaly creature with fins and flappy lips. Others had diagrams of obscure mathematical notations, lines and angles meshing into that same alien language.

  It was all a blur. Bored, she slid the book back into its place and was removing the second when a familiar robot whirred behind her.

  “May I?” Aster said, pointing to the first book.

  Evelyn slid it out again and handed it to him. “I can’t understand it. Maybe you can,” she said. “Meanwhile, I’m going to read this one.”

  The second proved no better, either. It was filled from front to back with that same alien language. No pictures this time. She reached for a third, then a fourth, equally disappointing. By the time she began thumbing through the fifth, Aster returned the first book and removed the second, opening it.

  “Have you ever read a book?” he said.

  Evelyn’s face heated up. “What is that supposed to mean? Yeah, I’ve read books!”

  Probably. Her gut told her she loved books. It helped that she remembered being inside a library.

  “You should work on your word choices,” Aurora said, followed by soft laughter. “They seem rather poor.”

  “I am a master of all,” Aster said. “Are these books written in Spellarian?”

  “How would you–right. Your data logs.” Aurora sprinkled some dried herbs into a pot suspended over the campfire outside. Live coals spat out cinders, only to be reigned in by a few wisps of lilac. “Yes, they are. Why wouldn’t they be?”

  He flipped to the next page. “Linguistic drift erased much meaning from what I currently know. Perhaps you face this issue, Evelyn, if you come from after the Change.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “I only know English.”

  “This is English.”

  “What? You’re joking, right?” She stared at him. How she wished he had a normal face to express emotions. “Really?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Why do you think we can communicate with Aurora?”

  Evelyn bit her bottom lip. “Oh.” Evelyn looked at the book still clutched tightly in her hand. She failed to make sense of the loopy writing that looked like water had spilled over them and ran the ink across the pages. “I’m tired, okay? I’m not thinking right.”

  “Do not worry. This simply confirms my suspicions that you are a pre-Change human,” Aster said. He was halfway through the second book. “To clarify your confusion, the Spellarians adopted English as their spoken language and kept their native language writing due to phoneme similarity. Of course, linguistic drift changed semantics over the years, and currently the lexicon is incomplete. These are only fragments of before.”

  Evelyn shook her head again. “Sorry, that’s way too much to understand. Can you break it down?”

  He set the book back in its place. “This world talks in English and writes in Spellarian. A lot of words have been added, changed meanings, and been removed entirely.”

  “Spellarian is not hard. I can teach you,” Aurora said.

  She stirred the burbling pot of stew. It was red-orange, sprinkled with herbs, and smelled sweet and savory. Evelyn’s mouth watered. She could slurp the entire pot dry. Aurora raised her eyebrows, mimicking bringing a spoon to her lips.

  “It’s almost ready,” she said, smiling.

  “Yeah, okay,” Evelyn said. She buried her face back in her book. Which she still couldn’t understand. She returned it to its proper place, pressing her forehead against the rocky wall.

  “I’m so dumb,” she groaned. “I can’t even read.”

  Aurora hummed a soft tune to herself while she cooked. “Don’t say that. Learning takes time.”

  “I don’t want to hear that word.” Evelyn felt over the pitted wall’s surface, digging her nails into grooves and chipping off tiny flakes of stone. “I lost everything because of time. I don’t know who I used to be, who my friends were, who I loved, who my family was. It’s all gone.”

  “You are here, in the flesh, speaking. I think you are somebody,” Aster said. “Additionally, you have me. You are not alone.”

  “And me,” Aurora said. He didn’t respond.

  Evelyn didn’t want to face them. It was true, wasn’t it? She wasn’t alone. But it hurt. The pain, the loss, of a life that hadn’t been fully lived, not really. A vine nipped too close to the bud. She was a ghost of the past haunting the present.

  No matter what they said, she knew the truth. She didn’t belong. A world of magic and machines had no room for somebody like her, a plain and simple human girl, hopelessly outclassed in strength and wit.

  Who was she, then, if she had nothing left?

  “Everything and everyone I’ve ever loved is gone,” Evelyn said. She shivered. “I am a nobody. It was just stupid luck I lived while everybody else died.”

  Even Aster and Aurora couldn’t hope to fill the gnawing hole in Evelyn’s chest. Nothing could replace that innocent joy in her memories, or the people she once cared for.

  She couldn’t hold it back anymore. First came the tears, stinging her eyes. Then a tightness gripped her throat, her stomach squeezed tight, and pain jolted from her hands pressing into the rock wall.

  Muffled footsteps approached her. She braced herself for the inevitable confrontation, but the footsteps paused behind her.

  “You are not a nobody,” Aurora said. “I cannot even begin to understand your loss. It must be terrible.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s an understatement,” Evelyn said, sniffling. She croaked out a laugh. “I am a nobody. I don’t even know who I am.”

  Five cold, rigid fingers curled over her shoulder. “Then we will figure it out as we go,” Aster said.

  She wiped her tears away. “How?”

  Five warm fingers curled over her other shoulder. “With my help, of course,” Aurora said softly. “Even you, Aster, as much as being this close to you terrifies me. You will both be protected under my wing.”

  “What will that consist of?” Aster said.

  “You said your information was outdated. Well, I can explain the world to you both while we eat.”

  Evelyn sucked in a deep breath and faced them. She hadn’t imagined it. Aster and Aurora were standing side by side, facing her.

  “I’d like that,” she said. She wiped the last of her tears away. The hole in her chest didn’t feel that empty anymore. “Thank you.”

  Aurora led her outside. Aster hung back, motionless, before he grabbed another book and flipped through its pages at a breakneck speed.

  Thankfully, time never stole the simplicity of food. The stew was pleasantly normal. Herbs floated to the top, while chunks of meat and vegetables were suspended beneath the reddish-orange surface. It beckoned her closer with a sweet, savory aroma.

  “I hope you enjoy it. It was one of my mother’s favorite recipes,” Aurora said.

  Suddenly, Evelyn remembered Aster’s warning. “Wait, is that safe for me to eat?”

  “Did you have beef, broth, parsley, rosemary, carrots, onions, peas, or potatoes before?”

  Evelyn nodded. “Yeah. They still exist? Human food?”

  “English was not the only human thing the Spellarians adopted.” Aurora raised her hand. Lilac tendrils lifted two bowls and dipped them into the stew. “Human food is universally grown and eaten.”

  Yet another tidbit of information Evelyn tucked away for later. Each bowl scooped up enough to be filled to the brim. More lilac tendrils reached out and brushed off any food or broth clinging to their outsides. They dropped a spoon in each and carried them through the crevasse, setting them on the table, followed by dragging the chair and a wooden crate close.

  “Is that magic?” Evelyn said. She had to make sure. “Your lilac thing.”

  “Yes.” Aurora lifted a finger, and a tiny lilac cloud wrapped around it. “What do you make of it?”

  “It’s so cool.”

  Aurora tilted her head. “Cool?”

  Slang was yet another casualty of time. Aurora offered her the chair, and Evelyn gladly accepted. She picked up her spoon. “It’s amazing. Magic wasn’t really a thing… before.”

  “Pre-Change,” Aster said. He was still reading.

  “Something happened while I was gone, right?” Evelyn raised the first spoonful to her lips. It burned, but her hunger burned worse. She plopped it into her mouth, melting at the burst of flavor coating her tongue. It had been a few thousand years since she last ate, after all.

  “A lot, unfortunately,” Aurora said. She, too, savored each spoonful of stew, gaze cast downward. She raised her hand. “I want you to see this.”

  Lilac tendrils reached into a shadowy corner. They retrieved a yellowed, wrinkled parchment and raised it to the wall. Lilac beads materialized and pinned the corners down.

  Evelyn stopped chewing. Black markings on the parchment formed shapes. No, borders. What could only be the continents of a map. A legend at the top right corner matched symbols to those plastered on each island and continent. A single word, written in the same alien language, stretched across the top.

  “Irmire,” Aster translated.

  “Um… what is this?” Evelyn asked. She wiped off broth from her chin and squinted her eyes. “Is this the world? I know my memory is messed up, but this feels wrong.”

  “It’s accurate as of my time of departure from Corsan,” Aurora said. “This is Irmire.”

  It was so pitifully small, drawn out like that. Landmasses that could’ve been a child’s scribble. “It doesn’t even look realistic,” Evelyn said. She fought to scoop up a morsel of meat. “Why is that continent a circle? Why is that one spiky?”

  None of the continents were familiar. In fact, the longer she stared at them, the more they seemed to bleed together until they became a dripping mess of smeared ink. It was all wrong. She was sure of it.

  “A long time ago, you had your world, Evelyn. We had ours.” Aurora gazed wistfully at the map. She twirled her pointer finger. Condensed lilac haze, like a smoke ring, landed perfectly on the circular continent at the center of the map. She joined her hands together. “Then, one day, we shared them.”

  “Forever,” Aster said. He stood beside Evelyn, arms stiff at his sides.

  “That is the Change. Nobody knows why it happened. Wars broke out. Resources became scarce. Humans and Spellarians fought each other until the Spellarians triumphed.”

  “The Spellarians are the inhabitants of their world,” Aster said. “They called it Spellar pre-Change. Today, it is called Irmire, but they remain Spellarians.”

  “That’s not true,” Aurora said.

  “I never lie.”

  “We’re not all the same.” She looked at Evelyn. “The Spellarians of today come from the continent of Spellar. They rule Irmire, so perhaps that is why you think we are all the same, Aster. But it’s not true. I come from the island of Corsan, part of the continent of Corsan, so I’m Corsanian. A Spellarian differs from me, physically and magically speaking.”

  Aster waggled his finger. “No. You are a subspecies of Spellarian, so you are Spellarian. You live on the spoils of an empire built on the ashes of the old world.”

  “I am not responsible for the sins of my ancestors. It is tragic, but it cannot be undone. We can only move forward and fix what is still fixable.”

  “Wait.” Evelyn stopped eating. She set her elbows on the table and gripped her temples. “Did they kill everyone?”

  Aster plodded over to the mouth of the crevasse. “I do not wish to listen anymore. There are things I must work through. If you need me, call my name, Evelyn. Otherwise, I will conduct biological analyses on this cave’s organisms.”

  He was infinitely more human than his robotic architecture suggested. “Okay,” she said, watching him vanish from sight. She turned back to Aurora. “Did they?”

  Her eyes crinkled in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Evelyn.”

  I’m sorry. Somehow, the truth didn’t disturb her as much as it should’ve. She suspected as such based on the lack of people welcoming her into the world when she’d emerged from her pod.

  Evelyn picked at her own food. “What about that thing? Aster killed it before it could capture me. It said I would fetch a good price.” She shuddered at how close she’d come to meeting a different fate.

  “They’re Seekers. Bounty hunters that would stop at nothing to claim their prize.”

  “For what? By who?”

  Aurora set her hands on the table. “Humans are feared and hated by the Spellarians. Even today, Spellar will pay a vast fortune to anybody who can find and return a living human. Yet only a pittance for those returned dead.”

  Evelyn looked at her arms, skin a healthy gold. “Why? Why me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know, Evelyn. They don’t see it that way. Humans aren't welcome. What Spellar decrees is what the rest of the world must obey. They have a very clear law: every human must be captured or killed.”

  Evelyn gasped. That explained Aster’s hostility. It was a miracle he hadn’t killed Aurora the moment she turned her back on them. “Why did you help us, then?” she said.

  Aurora wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand. Lilac lifted the oil and dumped it at the far end of the crevasse.

  “Because I care. I’m tired of seeing so much pain and suffering. I’ve committed many mistakes, Evelyn. More than anybody should ever make, but it comes with my job. I want to change that. The world can be good, because people like me try to help despite our positions, but it is governed by hatred and violence. Spellar has done a good job convincing people to believe they will never be better, and that life is unfair. They have convinced them that it is the way of the world. The strong rules over the weak.”

  Evelyn stared at the map. Each continent was marked with different letters and symbols matching the legend. A triangle marked the perfectly circular continent at the center of the map, while squares marked the rest.

  “Is that circle Spellar?” she said.

  “It is.”

  There were nine continents in total. Eight surrounded Spellar, their closest edges stretched toward the circular continent.

  “Which one is Corsan?”

  Aurora summoned another lilac ring. It struck a small, roughly oval-shaped continent at the far edge of the map.

  “That tiny island there is the island of Corsan. I live there in Corsan City. The mainland is mostly uninhabited, so the island gets the most attention.”

  “Is that where we’re going?” Evelyn said.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “It’s safe if you listen to me. Since it’s a dominion and I am well-respected, it will be easy to hide the two of you while I plan our next move.” Aurora slurped the last of her stew. Evelyn stared at her bowl. Despite her hunger, it remained mostly untouched. She quietly began to eat while Aurora set her dishes aside and wiped them off with her magical lilac tendrils.

  After a few spoonfuls, Evelyn cleared her throat. “How will you hide us?”

  Something tickled her arm. A scrap of paper floated away on a lilac tendril, dancing playfully. “Magic,” Aurora said. The paper shimmered, contorted, and was suddenly a pencil, clattering harmlessly on the table. “I can disguise you with illusions. Go ahead. Touch it.”

  Evelyn rolled the pencil between thumb and forefinger, pressing on the tip until it hurt, squeezing the wood and finding it didn’t give in. “That feels way too real. You can undo it, right?”

  “Of course.” Aurora snapped her fingers, and the pencil reverted into the piece of paper. Evelyn snatched it. Sure enough, it was easily foldable. “It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t change the object or person. Illusions add layers to the original and trick the observer into believing whatever the illusion is.”

  “Like a costume,” Evelyn said.

  “Yes. Like a costume.” Aurora smiled. “Only better.”

  There was so much potential. If illusions could change Evelyn, then that meant she didn’t have to cower while the world searched for humans like her. She could be free. She could explore a whole new world, and nobody would have to know who she really was.

  “Can you promise me something?” Evelyn said.

  Aurora’s smile dropped away. “I’m not good with promises.”

  “That’s okay. Promise me that you’ll protect us. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

  Aurora ran her fingers down her white hair. Her long, pointy ears twitched. “I promised that once to someone I loved, and I failed. I cannot promise what I can’t keep.”

  “Then try!” Evelyn leaned closer to her. “You saved us once already. I’m forever grateful for that. But you can try. I won’t blame you if you fail. You’ve done more than enough for us already.”

  Aurora folded her hands on the table. She kept her gaze pointed straight down. “I promise I will try to protect you. Aster, too, but he probably doesn’t need me.”

  Evelyn smiled. She didn’t know what force compelled her to close the distance between them and hug Aurora. She returned the hug fiercely, arms wrapped tight around her.

  It had been a very, very long time since Evelyn’s last hug.

  “Thank you.”