Beyond the End of the World by Amie Kaufman

Author:Amie Kaufman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Nimh

“Skyfall, is she dead?”

“I mean, she’s sitting up, so probably not?” A pause. “We’re going to need a new favorite curse word, you know.”

“Come on, focus! Should we do something?”

“Like what? What do you do when someone’s eyes start glowing right before she stops an entire train car in midair with the power of her mind?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, like, slap her or something?”

Two silhouettes swim up out of the white fog obscuring my vision, one of them answering the other with just a thin, frightened laugh. Trying to lift my head triggers a massive spike of pain right between my eyes, and I groan in spite of myself.

“Nimh?” Miri leans over me, her eyes wide and anxious. “Are you . . . done?”

“Done?” I croak, squinting against the daylight behind her. “What happened?” But before Miri can answer, memories of the falling train car come screaming back, and I sit bolt upright—and then double over, clutching my head. “Are we alive?”

Saelis laughs again, though, like Miri, I can tell he’s not entirely all right, the sound verging on hysterical. “Alive, yes. Okay? That remains to be seen. You don’t remember catching the train?”

When I just blink at him, confused, he shifts his weight and tips his head to one side. I follow his gaze over his shoulder and see the train car, its broken window glinting in the sun, the doors half-open. We’re on a grassy slope leading down to a creek with the forest-sea on our other side. For a moment, I can’t tell what I’m meant to see. Then I realize: the whole thing is hovering knee-height above the ground.

I gasp, and as if the sound were some kind of cue, the entire train car goes crashing to the ground, sending leaves and blades of grass shooting out in a cloud around it. Miri gives a little shriek, scrambling back and then eyeing me sidelong. One hand still clutching at my head, I give my neck an experimental twist—the pain is better, now that the train is down.

“You are saying . . . I did that?” I ask, bewildered—the last thing I remember is the rush of sensation following the release of my shackles.

“And that, I think.” Saelis has recovered some of his gravity and lifts a hand to point in the opposite direction of the train.

I turn to look where he’s pointing, and then my body stops responding as shock courses through me. In the distance is the city—both cities. Alciel sits atop my home, the palace almost exactly centered over the temple, and the other end of the island resting on the hills on the other side of the river. A dim line of color flashes between them, some barrier of mist trapped between the two worlds, but where I would’ve expected to see destruction—fires burning, buildings crumbling—all seems calm from this distance.

“Gods,” I whisper, my staring eyes watering with the strain.

“You turned toward it after you caught the train,” Miri says from behind me.

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