“If you focus hard enough you can make out a direction as well. If you can find one you think is close, and it’s in the same direction we’re traveling, then maybe we could try.”

  Isaac couldn’t give her his full attention, there were voices, so many voices. He couldn’t make out what any of them were saying but they were there, growing stronger by the second. He swiveled around trying to pinpoint each and every voice. So many! Claustrophobia trickled up his neck.

  “What is it Isaac?” He heard her move closer despite the voices. “Did you find one? Already?”

  Isaac tried to speak, to reassure her, but when he opened his mouth all that came out was a low moan.

  “Isaac?”

  A hundred voices, no, a thousand voices, all screaming for him, screaming to tear him apart, to rend, rip and gouge his skin. They were close, to the east, behind the church wall. No, they were even closer than that, or— getting closer, yeah that was it. A thousand keys were moving, right for them!

  Isaac’s eyes split open, despite the cacophony of voices threatening to render him unconscious. He tried to warn Aster but instead he whined out a long overwhelmed note.

  “Isaac!” Someone grabbed his arm.

  He punched himself in the forehead three times in rapid succession. The force of the blows knocked him to the ground, but the voices dissappeared. Paniced, he looked up into Aster’s face. She stood over him, great concern written in her face.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Sparing no time to explain, he flipped his feet under him onto their soles and launched both himself and Aster out of the way. The wall in front of them burst inwards and Isaac felt something hit them and push Aster into him. The both tumbled backwards until a wooden pew struck Isaac in the back and stopped their momentum.

  Isaac couldn’t see anything for rock dust but he could hear Crassus as he started screeching like a madman. He shook Aster, but she didn’t move.

  “Hey! Aster, get up!”

  Her head lolled over on his hand and when he looked down he saw a large red spot blossoming out from her forehead and over his fingers.

  “Fuck me.”

***

  “But that’s just it Falco, I don’t want a new key. Why can’t we focus on what matters?”

  Falco sat askew the hydrogen tank with a hand-held canned welding machine, trying to mend the hole he had hammered open earlier. He wore no protective gear of any kind, opting instead to shield his face with his hand and look away for every weld he attempted.

  “Matters?” he chuckled, “this is all that matters my friend!”

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  Finn sighed like a teenager tolerating his dorky parent. “Why?”

  Falco turned surprised to look at Finn. “My dear boy! Your first key did not do you much good, now did it? We must be getting you a new one, quickly! I can’t have you walk around undefended.”

  Finn let out a sound of frustration. “Where would we even find one, there’s nothing here! Every place we flew past was barren.” He gestured to the trees surrounding them.

  They’d landed in a clearing just as they’d lost lift completely, scraping across a sharp cliff by the skin of their teeth. The poor boy had lost his cool for a moment then. Finn had told him that he did everything with complete recklessness and no regard for his own or anyone else’s life. Falco smiled at the memory. The kid was a bit soft.

  Falco lifted his dented helmet with one finger in a half-salute, half-greeting. “I will teach, and you will learn.” He couldn’t help but laugh at Finn’s miffed expression. Falco jumped down from the tank and walked up to Finn. “Come now, my young student, what really troubles you?”

  Finn hesitated but then a dam inside him broke loose. “What difference would a second key make when the first one already isn’t doing anything? What’s to keep me from just failing one more time?” Finn’s shoulders sagged as if all the air went out of him at once.

  Falco gripped the kids shoulder. “Do you always doubt yourself this much?” He burst his hands out to either side as if in celebration. “Believe in yourself, little man!” He sauntered over to his open metal boxes and began tidying up the tools he had used for the tank repair. “Besides,” he said, tapping his nose, “I have my suspicions about your tiny problem. I think a second key would be… enlightening.”

  Finn threw his hands up in the air. “You said you’ve never seen one like it right?” He didn’t wait for Falco to answer. “Why do we even need to do this? I just want to go home.” Falco straightened his back. “Look, Falco, you’ve been very nice to me, more than you’ve had any right to be…” Falco turned to look at Finn, the boy had a sorrowful expression on his face. “But I need to go home. There are people waiting for me.”

  Falco turned the welder in his hand over and over a couple times. “Do you have family waiting for you?”

  “No… Well, yes, but there’s basically just my brother left.”

  “Is he waiting for you?”

  “What?”

  “Is your brother,” Falco paused, “waiting for you?”

  Finn hesitated once more, apprehension on his face. “My brother is… complicated.” He searched Falco’s face, as if looking for something, but he must not have found for he continued, speaking fast. “Honestly I think he’d be happy that I’m gone. At least now I can’t fuck up more of his life.” The bitterness that showed through his voice and face then was such that it pained Falco to see the stark contrast between the smiling blond-haired kid and a weathered self-loathing man.

  Falco took three steps over to Finn and grasped both his shoulders in between oil soaked hands. “If that’s that’s the case my magnificent friend, then your brother isn’t worth missing.” Finn’s eyes widened.

  Falco laughed. “Besides, young man, you can find a new family here, in the Endpoint!” He gestured with his hands, spinning in circles, to the sky above them. He stopped, then walked back to Finn again. “You don’t need to live in the past, look to the future!”

  Finn still hesitated. “But, Falco…”

  Falco held up a finger. “I know! I know…” He looked down, as if considering, then back to Finn. “If returning home is what you truly want, then perhaps I might be able to help you.”

  Finn brightened at that more than from anything else Falco had said so far and the mustached mentor swelled with pride. “Really? You know how to return home?”

  Falco smiled wide, nodded and bopped Finn on the nose with his pinky. “No.”

  Finn’s smile disappeared. “But you said…”

  Falco interrupted him. “But I do know where to start.”

  Finn’s face shone in awe. “You do?”

  “We go to the tower. The Tower of the Nine.”

  “The Tower of the Nine…” Finn whispered. “Where’s that.”

  “Oh, it’s far from here,” Falco said, “ but first we’ll train you up, then…”

  Finn’s eyes bulged in sheer anticipation.

  “We go south.”