Rain pounded heavily against the walls of the castle. It was the heaviest storm I'd seen in all my time here. Lightning illuminated the room every couple of seconds or so, so frequent and so bright and so quick. Thunder was always sure to follow after, and the castle groaned more times than felt safe. But I refused to let any of those things worry me even more than I already was.

I focused on my breathing. In and out. In and out. I focused on my breathing so I wouldn't focus on the storm, and how that creature could be out there, hiding in the shadows of the clouds and waiting for each lightning strike to make its kill, so that nobody could hear the dying screams of its prey over the crash of the thunder.

I listened to the rain pattering against the windows, the only sense of peace in the middle of such a violent storm.

I wish he was here. He would have loved it. He would have wrapped his arms around me and hold me close no matter who was watching. He would be my source of warmth, of hope, of happiness. He would stare out the window, watching as the rain fell, and he would smell just like it did after the storm had passed on. And I would be his and he would be mine.

But he isn't here. He's gone. Forever.

I drew my knees close to my chest and lost myself in the fire. It never mattered how close I sat to it. I was still cold. Still incomplete.

James stepped into the room and stopped. I glanced up and acknowledged him with a soft smile that didn't quite match how I felt inside. He smiled back, just as emptily, and stepped over to Washington.

"Sir?"

"Yes?" Washington asked, not bothering to stand up from the couch. He looked more like an weary veteran than a venerated warrior.

"I think we should head for the maze and try to infiltrate as soon as possible."

"James, with all due respect, I don't want to discuss such things right now."

The atmosphere in the room went still at once, more so than it had been. The fire seemed to stop in its hearth, and all eyes were on the two of them.

James opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"We'll talk about this in the morning, okay?"

"No!" His words echoed through the silent room, followed only by the distant rumble of thunder. James winced as his own words left his mouth, but to his credit, he didn't cower away even as Washington rose to his full height.

"James," Washington said softly. He held out his hand. "You're still upset about what happened, and that's perfectly normal. But we cannot afford to let this cloud our sense of better judgment. Perhaps it's time we move on."

"It hasn't even been a month!" James yelled, stepping away from Washington's outstretched hand. "Not even a month, and you all refuse to say Thomas's name because you're afraid it'll conjure him and show him exactly how long it took to move on! Don't you see what's happening?" He trembled where he stood, raising a sleeve to wipe away his tears. "We're forgetting him."

Nobody spoke.

When James finally continued, his voice was shaking. "Thomas died for us. The last thing he wanted to do was kill the King. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to avenge my best friend. And you all can feel free to stay here!"

"James—" Washington began, but I had had enough.

"Thomas didn't care about any of us," I said, standing up. "Otherwise, he'd still be here."

"What the f—?"

"Think about it," I interrupted before James could speak. "If Thomas actually cared about how any of us felt, he wouldn't have gotten himself killed. He knew how devastated we would be. How useless we felt. How much we wanted to hurt ourselves for what happened. And yet he went anyway."

James stared at me, shaking his head as if I had said something vile. "You know he waited for you, right? Four hundred years he spent on Earth, waiting for you. And even before that, even before we thought you were dead. And all it's taken you to move on is a couple of weeks? Does anybody matter to you?"

His words stung like a dagger being plunged into my chest, but I forced myself to continue on. "What are you trying to prove, huh? Thomas is a terrible person, but I never said I was any better. The sooner we move on from him, the better off we'll be. If we throw ourselves into a battle just to avenge him, we could get seriously hurt. Or worse, someone who actually matters could get killed." As I was talking, a strike of lightning suddenly lit up the room for a brief couple of seconds, and was immediately followed by the sound of something thrown from the highest pedestal and landing as a broken pile on the floor below.

"We need to move on," I said, as flatly as I could, hoping not to show the anger, the fear, the desperation that was boiling up inside of me. "And that's what I'm doing. Moving on. If you have a problem, well, I guess you'll just have to deal with it like the rest of us."

"You're horrid," was all James said before turning and retreating from the room.

"Alexander," Eliza said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers touched my shoulder, but I ducked away from her. "Alexander, don't you think that was a little much?"

"No. I don't. I didn't say anything that wasn't true. He didn't care what we thought, so I'll think about him however I damn well please. I've moved on. We all need to."

"You keep saying that," Aaron said, standing up. "You keep saying you've moved on, but the only person you're fooling is yourself, Alexander. Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to make sure James is okay." He left without another word, disappearing to wherever James had disappeared to.

Whatever. I didn't care what anybody else thought about me.

"Alexander, why don't you go get some sleep?" Washington calmly suggested. "You look like you need it."

"Making me leave won't make me any less right," I said, but I shouldered past Eliza and teleported away from the room before I reached the doorway. I didn't stop or pause or try to pick a place to go to; I just needed to get away from them.

When my eyes opened and I reoriented myself, I recognized the hallway I was standing in the middle of immediately. I stared at the portrait of the forest sitting against the back wall, and slowly forced myself to peer at the empty space next to it.

A sigh escaped my mouth, and I stepped up to the painting and let my fingers brush up against the tiny little bluebird sitting in the tree. The canvas was coarse underneath my touch, the colors of the paint dull with age. And yet, I could still feel the energy imbued into the small bird, and my breath caught in my throat at how much it still felt like his.

I stepped back from the painting as the doorway fell open, unnecessarily dramatic just as he wanted it. The dark tunnel waited at my feet, beckoning me inward, but for some reason, I couldn't force myself to take the final few steps. I couldn't go in. I couldn't face it.

"What are you doing?"

I spun without a single second of hesitation, dagger in my hand, and shoved it right up against a neck. "Oh," I said when I recognized who hadn't even flinched. "Sorry. I guess I'm still on edge."

"It's alright," Philip said as I put my dagger away. "I'm use to people threatening me. What are you doing?"

I took the final steps forward, resting one hand against the doorway. "Come with me," I said, holding out my other hand to him. He took it eagerly, and I pulled him inside. The door shut soon after, leaving us in a vast ocean of darkness. I closed my eyes, trying to adjust myself, and let a soft blue orb of light illuminate the cramped passageway.

Philip looked unfazed. "Why are we here? I thought you had moved on."

"I don't know," I said sharply. "Did they send you to make me feel worse about what I said?"

"No, of course not." He paused for a moment, and I could feel his eyes on me. "Do you feel bad for what you said?"

"I—"

The short answer was of course I did, but I couldn't force the words past my lips. I couldn't face the fact that what I said hadn't been the truth. Aaron was right about me. The only person I was fooling, or at least trying to fool, was myself.

Philip squeezed my hand. "Do you want to talk about him?"

"No."

"I do."

"Go ahead."

"I miss him, actually. I miss him a lot. I guess you never realize how much you care about someone until they're gone, right?" He swallowed, so pronounced I could hear it from where I was. "I'm sorry. I know you don't want to talk about him. Or hear about him. But if I'm being honest, I don't think you're grieving method is very healthy."

"No?"

"You went from mourning him every second to barely ever mentioning his name."

"Well, life moves on."

"You're not moving on, though, Alexander. You're choosing to forget about him. That's not the same thing. Because, in private, you're going to break. You're going to cry. And nobody will know, and nobody will be able to help you. And that's not what moving on is. It's acceptance, not forgetting."

I chuckled and stopped walking, turning so I could see him. "When did you become so mature?" 

Philip shrugged and looked elsewhere, color touching his cheeks. "I don't know. I've had a lot of experience, I guess."

"You had your childhood robbed from you." I felt worse knowing I had partly been the reason for that.

"I guess you could say that."

"Come on, we're almost there. Do you want to know what this place is?"

"I already do. Thomas showed me."

I froze. "What? When?" Wasn't this supposed to be our thing? Wasn't this supposed to be between him and me, and nobody else would ever find out? Suddenly, the magic of the place seemed a lot duller, the walls of the corridor seemed a lot closer.

"Oh, while you two were having your whole silent argument thing and he was alone," Philip said, waving it off like it didn't matter. "He was alone and hurt by your silence so he came here a lot."

"And you went with him."

"Well, I caught him one day and asked him where he was going, and he showed me."

He wasn't trying to make me feel horrible, but my throat still tightened all the same. I let go of his hand. "Right, let's keep going then."

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

"No. Just mad at myself."

"Don't be mad, Alexander. It's in the past. Being mad won't fix anything."

"But mourning somebody who's already dead will?"

"Sure. It'll make you feel better."

"Maybe being mad will too."

"I doubt it."

I stopped once the corridor broke away, pooling into the room filled with instruments. I swallowed as my eyes rested on the old but well-kept piano sitting in the middle of the room. It didn't look right without him sitting on the bench, fingers poised over the keys like he was about to play. Maybe if I closed my eyes and imagined it just right, he'd still be there. Like he never left me in the first place.

I hate how much I still need him.

How dependent I was on him in the first place.

How every morning, when I wake up, I feel like the world caves in underneath me, dragging me down into the dark abyss.

It's not fair.

Why can't I move on?

Every time I think I do, I smell the scent of rain, or hear the early morning bird chatter, or catch a glimpse of the stars right, and I fall again

and again

and again.

I swallowed down the marble sitting in the back of my mouth and finally forced myself to go over to the piano. Without really willing myself to, I sunk onto the bench. It was still pulled out, as if Thomas had every intention of coming back to finish playing whatever ghostly yet beautiful song he had been interrupted in. I set my fingers against the keys, watching them shake, and pressed down lightly. My throat tightened long after the notes fell from the air, like discarded angels thrown from heaven.

A hand on my back, and as much as I wanted to shrug it off, I couldn't. Philip spoke softly, as if he was responsible for keeping me away from breaking down. I wanted to correct it, to inform him that it wasn't his job, but rather mine to protect him. I'm his father.

What a horrible job I've done of that so far.

I have to tell him.

"Thomas was showing me how to play," he said, resting his hands on the keys. "But I never really got that far. Do you know how?"

I shook my head slowly, afraid to break the tender moment. "I wish I did. But maybe of we went back to Earth, we could find somebody who'd be willing to teach you."

Philip nodded, and it was a while before he spoke again. "What if we stayed there?"

"What? On Earth? Trust me, I've thought about it before. But we can't just walk away from this. Maybe once it's all over. Maybe once we kill the King. You and I could go together, back to Earth. What reason do we have to stay?"

Philip laughed, dotting at his eyes. "Yeah. Sounds wonderful. But first, you'll actually have to kill the King."

"You think I should do it?"

"Of course. I know you can. And then once you do, we can be like a family kind of. Wouldn't that be nice?"

I swallowed and looked away. I couldn't let him see me cry. "That would be nice. Now how much piano do you remember? You can play for me if you want."

Philip wasn't great, but he was learning, and whatever he played drowned out the violent crash of the storm raging just above our heads.