The air on the rooftop is freezing cold. Humidity has condensed into ice on the floor, too cold to melt it. For a brief moment, Alouette lets herself realise this isn't supposed to happen—that the heat coming from the floor just below her feet should likely keep the roof ice-free all winter long. That it isn't doing it, because that floor belongs to the presidential family's apartments, and they were closed off almost a decade ago.

Now, ice gathers on the roof, thick and slippery, making the path to the railing dangerous. Alouette sinks to her knees right where she's standing. Her breath comes out of her lips in cloudy puffs. Autumn has come to an end, and winter has been quick to claim its throne. Gone is the ambiguous weather and the mild climate of the south. The north winds hiss through the streets of Northfair, past the signs and advertisements, past the cars skittering down the streets. The thin layer of frost that covers the destroyed buildings all around the Palace reflects the lights of the city like gemstones reflect sunlight, neon green and hot pink haloes rising from the ground like ghosts of Northfair past.

Everything is falling apart. That's the thing, though, isn't it? Everything has been falling apart since the start. Alouette's efforts to change the present have always been nothing more than desperate attempts to keep alive something that was already gone, like a doctor still trying to resuscitate a patient hours after their heart stopped beating because it's less daunting than having to pronounce them dead. Every step of the way, it gets a little farther from medicine and closer to necromancy.

She doesn't know what to do with the little her father has left her. Her mother has vanished, her sister is missing, and so what if Daniel Ivenhart trusted Harry at some point? She can't bear to look at Elijah in the eyes. Every time she sees Jesse, all she feels is shame and guilt. Thinking of Elodie and Anthony locked up in the bowels of the Palace makes her throat close, and she doesn't know how to fix any of it. The hints her father gave her are useless—Harry isn't the young man he met a decade ago anymore, and all her problems originate from him. Even if he thought him an ally, to her he's just an enemy. Worse than that, even, because she can't win against him. What is there to win anymore, anyway? Even if she found a way to kill him tomorrow, it would not bring her sister back. It would not fix her mistakes. The dead would not come back to life, Elijah wouldn't get back the use of his leg. And she would hate it, too. She would hate it, because she just can't seem to be able to hurt him. And maybe it's a weakness, but is it, really? Is it so bad to retain her soul and morals even when no one else around her does? Must she forsake all that she is in order not to feel so guilty anymore? Will retaining her humanity damn her even further, when she already knows she wouldn't win anyway?

Where is the line? The one that shouldn't be crossed, the one that determines it all. Where is it? Have they crossed it already? If they have, how long ago did it happen?

Was she the one that made the first step?

We all strive for freedom.

Why do you think you're any different from me?

A shiver runs down her spine as a terrible realisation strikes her. She's the one that crossed it first, with Harry. She's the one that designed the levels of the match, that erased and redrew the line on the ground over and over again to suit her objectives. She's the one that taught him there are no lines, with them.

We've both crossed lines plenty of times.

They did it so often that they started to lose meaning—that it became normal to redefine and redraw them over and over again, until it became so normal that she forgot they existed altogether.

You've made your choice, so its consequences are yours, too.

Her present is haunted by her mistakes. Her ghosts are silently watching her, waiting to be joined by her next victim.

She can't stand it.

The frost melts under her body heat, dampening her trousers. She's not dressed warm enough to be out in this weather, and she's trembling violently.

She can't speak to those ghosts—even if she could, she wouldn't deserve it. But there's still something she can do.

She can find her sister. And, when she does, she'll take her as far away as she can, so far that the wreck she's left behind won't get to her. She won't let her become one of her mistakes.

She forces herself to get up to her feet and storms downstairs.

She's so tense that the ride on the lift feels terribly long, and the thought of the doors opening to reveal Harry on the other side make her heart hammer in her throat. But he doesn't show up, and then she's getting off on her floor and walking straight to her room. She needs to think—she needs some clarity. A plan is forming in her mind, a risky one, but it's all she has. So what if it could be dangerous—so what if it'll force her to face more than she can deal with? She'd do anything for her sister.

She gets to her room and opens the door.

As she walks inside, her foot kicks a piece of paper on the ground. Her heart thuds, though she can't tell why. She closes the door and turns on the light—the sky beyond the window is too dark to see much of anything. She picks the paper up, and cold washes over her.

It's a letter.

She breaks it open. She notices she's shaking only when the paper inside gets ripped a little in the process. She takes it out, letting the folder fall on the ground. She unfolds it, for some reason so scared that her head feels light. She doesn't know what she expects.

Three sentences stare up at her from the paper sheet.

You owe me, Alouette Ivenhart.
Are you prepared to uphold your part of the deal?
We'll meet soon.

She drops the letter. Cold comes over her, and for an instant she sways in her spot. She'd completely forgotten about that message.

She turns the room over looking for the others. When she does, she opens them and compares them.

Your turn.

I knew you'd come. Did you like my present?
Now you owe me, Alouette Ivenhart.

They were all written in the same hand, light yet hard, like a scratch on the page. Her heart thuds against her ribcage, a bird desperately trying to escape.

She found the third message in her room, in the upper floors of the Palace. She knows what this means.

She hides the messages and flees the room.

She doesn't even know where she's going until she crashes into Jackson's office.

He's on the phone, and he gets so spooked by her sudden arrival that he drops it, and it clatters loudly on the floor. He glares down at it fastidiously before pushing it away with a foot with a slide of broken glass on marble. "What is it, Ivenhart?" Jackson's tone is calm and cold, like it usually is when he talks to her, but she doesn't miss the way he's dropped the usual Ms.

She doesn't waste time. "Who has access to the upper floors?"

He frowns. "What?"

"Who can come to the upper floors? Can any strangers come in? Has anyone come in today?"

Annoyance replaces his confusion, and it is then replaced by scorn. "This is what you've destroyed my phone for?" he asks, hard. "No one that doesn't belong to the upper floors can come in. No strangers, for any reason. And we haven't had any official visits as of late. Don't you know all of this already?"

"Are you sure? No one at all? Maybe, I don't know, not even someone to fix a broken laptop or something?"

Jackson pinches the bridge of his nose. "What are you talking about? You know the upper floors are on lockdown, Ms. Ivenhart. The President lives here. No one can just stroll in. Don't bother me with ridiculous things." A moment of silence. Then, "Why? Has something happened?"

She doesn't know why she lies. For some reason, though, it feels momentous in the very instant she does—it feels like giving up at last. Northfair, time of death: 23:37, December 1st 2263.

Sometimes, big events start from small actions, like tripping over the wrong cable in the wrong room makes an entire world collapse.

"No."

Jackson doesn't seem convinced. "Are you sure?"

She presses herself against Jackson's coat, that's hanging by the door. "Yes."

He sighs and leans against his desk. "Listen, if there's anything you've noticed that I should know..."

"There's nothing," she replies fast, and then, because he gives her a weird look, "I just thought I saw someone I knew, but I've just realised I was wrong." Her hand, behind her, closes around around something cold. "There's nothing, really."

She turns around and leaves the office.

As she walks back to her room, she parses through the little she knows to figure out what to do. If no one new has been in the upper floors lately, the letter must've been left inside her room by someone that is already here. Someone that is always here, most likely.

There's a spy in the Palace.

Not only is there a spy in the upper floors, but they know who she is, where she sleeps, and have the means of entering her room.

We'll meet soon.

Now the letter feels like a threat. Someone is coming for her. She doesn't have much time left.

She's understanding now that finding Elijah in that abandoned building has been a challenge all along. By taking him away with her, she's entered into some type of deal with the stranger from the letters. Still. Deals are made to be broken—if the past month has taught her anything, it's that. And she has every intention of breaking this one.

More than that, even: if they know where to find her, she just has to leave. And, if she plays her cards right, she'll find out where she needs to go soon enough.

When she gets back to her rooms, Elijah is standing in front of her door. Her heart stops. "Elijah?" They're slowly nearing midnight now; her voice is so loud in the silence of the empty corridor.

He spins towards her, loses his balance, catches himself with his crutches. "We need to talk," he says roughly.

She doesn't move. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk," he repeats, louder. "Now."

Alouette blinks quickly. She wants to step back, to turn around and leave. She doesn't want to talk to Elijah—even just looking at him makes her feel sick. There's no doubt in her he now knows what happened to the Revolution—he knows it's been destroyed, he knows it's her fault. She can't take it.

But he has something she wants, and she promised herself she'd be braver from now on. She steps forward and unlocks the door. "Come in," she says, walking inside first and holding the door open for him. He limps inside, and she closes the door at his back, studying him as he glances around the room—the bed, the balcony, the small couch and wardrobe, the door that leads to the bathroom. She doesn't want to know what he sees. "How's your leg?" she ventures, and Elijah's head snaps in her direction.

For a moment, they stare at each other in silence. "I saw Jesse earlier," he then says. "He was wearing a Palace uniform." He pauses, like he expects her to speak—but she doesn't. "Did he—"

"No. Heavens, no," Alouette replies, fast. "He didn't want this. He was forced, like—"

"You weren't."

Her heart drops. "I—"

"I helped you." Elijah doesn't even look like he knows what he's saying. His pupils are wide, his breath quick. "You were locked in that room, and you begged, and I helped you. I let you out. I helped—I thought you'd—"

"Elijah, please," she says, and her sight goes blurry. "Please don't do this—"

"I helped you!" His shout is loud, and she flinches back. He steps forward. "I stalled them, and you let him—"

"I didn't do anything! I didn't know, I..."

He laughs. "You didn't know?! Come on, Al! You didn't know he'd end up killing us all?! You let him in. You brought him to us. You wanted this deal. You caused this. None of this would have happened if it weren't for you."

His words stun her into silence. "I—I didn't..." she tries to say after a long moment, but nothing comes out. Nothing comes out, because he's right. She knows he's right. He hasn't said anything she hasn't already told herself again and again. But why does it hurt so much when he's the one saying it?

Her cheeks are wet—she's crying, and she hates it, because she has no right to. This is all her fault, and she's always known it.

Elijah scoffs. "You're just like your father."

That makes her flinch. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're just like him." He takes another step forward—one of his crutches gets tangled in the rug and he almost falls, but catches himself on the wardrobe with a hand. The crutch falls on the ground with a clang. "You don't care about anything but yourself. Yourself and your... ideals. You're so focused on reaching them that you don't even care if the world burns around you, if people get hurt. You don't even notice it. You don't even see it."

"My father wasn't—"

He laughs again. The sound is cold, harsh. "Wasn't... what? Oh." He leans his head back for a moment. "Oh, Al. You still haven't realised that everyone that knew him personally hated him?"

Her eyes widen. "What are you talking about?"

"Sure, the people liked him. And how couldn't they? He was so compelling! So brilliant! Just like a true leader, wasn't he?" He leans forward. They're so close that she can feel his breath on her face as he speaks. "But that wasn't the whole truth. The truth is, he was obsessive, single-minded, and he cared about nothing but his own plans. Ever the professor, he was so theoretical! All ideals, all purity and freedom of thought and whatever else he loved to talk about. But what about facts? Oh, he wasn't good with those. They didn't fit in nicely with his other views. That's why Ezra hated him, why Asher and the Council couldn't stand him! He would've sent the Revolution straight to hell if he decided it appropriate."

"You're lying!"

"What has he done, Al? Tell me just one thing he's done!"

"He's created the Revolution!"

"And what else?"

"He..." Her words fail. She blinks and looks away.

"He created the Revolution," Elijah repeats. His voice is low, now, even. "His master project. His world of ideals. I bet he was so proud of it. He had no plans for it beyond creating it. He would've sacrificed it in an instant if he saw fit. The truth is, he was just a professor playing god, Al. How couldn't you see it?"

"He would've done more!" Alouette exclaims. "He would've done more, if the accident hadn't—"

"The accident? The accident?" Elijah covers his face with his hands. His shoulders shake, like he wants to laugh. He's so exasperated, so... done. "You're still talking about it like it was an accident? I told you—" His voice breaks. They're standing so close, so very close. She can't move. "I told you someone tried to hire my father to kill yours mere months before he died. Do you still think it was an accident?"

"What—" Her mind spirals. "What are you—"

"In the generator room, in the middle of the night? What was he even doing there? Come on, Al!" Elijah leans down towards her. He's half-hunched against the wardrobe to support his own weight since his leg can't, but he's still taller than her. "Your father was killed. Whoever came to my dad found someone to finish the job, and they killed your father."

Alouette's vision swims, and she sinks to the ground. "Who... who—" She can't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to.

"I don't know. But there were a lot of people that didn't stand him back then."

"You think it was an inside job."

Elijah slowly moves down to the floor to gather his fallen crutch. "I don't think anything," he bites out. "I'm tired of thinking. I'm tired of this—your family. Everything." He stands again, tries the crutch against the rug to make sure it isn't broken. "Of always having to pick up the pieces. First my dad, then the Revolution. Nothing ever lasts when Ivenharts are involved."

Alouette's head snaps up towards him. "Is that why you lied?"

Elijah flinches, but then hesitates. "What?"

"You said Amina wasn't there. You said you didn't know a thing."

His eyes narrow. "And what about it?"

"You didn't look at me once while saying it," she whispers out. Elijah, her first friend from her golden childhood. One of the people she knows best in the entire world—one of the ones she would always fight for. How could he think she wouldn't know? "You lied."

He stares down at her for one long moment—maybe wondering if he should deny it? But he must know it's pointless. He sighs. "What about it?"

"Why did you lie?"

"Because..." His voice dies out. He looks away, but then his eyes find hers again. "I won't let you get yourself killed."

"She's my sister."

"And this is a trap," he replies with a scoff. "Come on, Al. Your sister is missing and all of a sudden you find me and I have information on where she might be? This is a trap."

Alouette stands. "She's my sister," she repeats. "I don't care what happens. I need to find her."

"If you go there you'll just get yourself killed. They're just waiting for you to come."

"She's my sister!" She doesn't realise she's raised her voice until it rings out through the room. "Tell me what you know now."

"Why? So you can die for a noble cause? Your sister isn't there anymore, Al. They've moved her already. If you go there, you'll find them waiting for you."

"And so what if I do?! She's my sister. I'd do anything for her. If I die, then so be it. I'll find her and make sure she's safe first."

Elijah stares her down for a long moment, seeming to evaluate her.

"Tell me," she repeats.

"You're being reckless."

"It's none of your business anymore, right? So tell me."

He seems to be thinking about it for an instant. "And you promise you won't get yourself killed?"

"What's it to you?" Alouette bites back, and a grimace washes over Elijah's face.

"Now you're being cruel."

"And you aren't?"

Elijah sighs and takes a tentative step towards the door. The crutches thud against the marble floor. Then, he pauses. "I don't know a lot. I wasn't... I wasn't really myself."

"Tell me whatever you know."

He looks at her over his shoulder. "I know the city. It isn't too big."

Alouette's heart skitters. "Where is it?"

He sighs again. "Isn't it obvious?" he asks. Alouette feels like her life is hanging by a thread. Elijah turns around, fully facing her. When he speaks, he sounds exhausted. "Where do you keep something you don't want the government to find?"

Alouette's eyes widen. "Pans." How hasn't she thought of it before?

Elijah nods. "Now you know where to look."

He opens the door with some difficulty, and then he's slowly moving out of her room.

As soon as he's gone, Alouette starts getting ready. She throws her belongings in a bag, taking care to hide her father's book, his file, and the picture she's found in her usual hiding spot in the couch. The mysterious messages she throws into the toilet, but she keeps the first—the one with the address—and stashes it together with her other belongings. She doesn't take them with her—she doesn't want to lose them. Maybe one day she'll find a way to retrieve them, or maybe they'll be here forever.

She throws the bag over her shoulder, but pauses before going out. After a moment's hesitation, she reaches her nightstand and takes a paper sheet and a pen from the top drawer, scribbling down a message.

She doesn't know why she does it. It feels necessary, for some reason. She needs them to know it's her own choice to leave—and she needs them to stay away from her bedroom as long as possible, if she doesn't want them to find her hidden belongings until she'll at least have a chance to take them back.

I'll be back, maybe, read the words on the page as she folds it and sneaks out of the room. By now it's almost two in the morning, and no one is around. She slithers upstairs and slides her message under the door to Harry's office to maximise the chances it'll be found quickly when the Palace wakes up in some hours.

Then, she takes the secret passage all the way down. This time there's no one waiting for her, and she makes it into the garage of the Palace with ease. It takes her some sneaking around to avoid the guards, but it's the time when the turns change, and no one is paying too much attention to her shadow.

Besides, she's already taken care of the most complicated part of her escape. She pulls a keycard out of her pocket. Jackson's keycard, no less.

It doesn't take her too long to find his car—he's the second most important figure in the Palace after Harry, and he likes to keep his treasures where he can reach them with ease, thankfully.

She gets in the driver's seat and leans her forehead on the steering wheel. She takes a deep breath, and then another. Now, she just needs to find a way to actually get out of the Palace. Jackson is asleep by now, so he won't be alerted immediately if she uses his keycard. She needs to come up with a solid plan to elude the Palace's guards once she's out in the streets of Northfair, though, because, while he won't manage to act fast enough to keep her within the walls of the Palace, there's no doubt he'll be right after her soon.

The door on the passenger's side opens and closes.

She jumps in her spot and looks up—and her heart drops.

Harry is sitting right next to her—Harry, with his elegant black suit and immaculately white dress shirt. Dark hair as perfect as always, just a tiny hint of lipstick on his reddened lips—he must've had an official meeting after their encounter. There's a black coat thrown over his shoulders to protect him from the cold, and he's too much—too fake—in the dim light of the garage.

"What?" she whispers. Distantly, she's aware the plans of her escape have just disappeared. It doesn't even feel real.

He stares her down. "Are you surprised? You're the one that announced your intentions so clearly."

"You... you were in your office?" Her voice falters. "At this time of night?"

He tilts his head, and a faint smile plays on his lips, like she's just said something funny. "You know I hardly ever sleep."

Her breath quickens. This can't be how it ends. She needs to go—she needs to go now. She can't let herself be caught just like this. She'll take this head on—she'll find a way. She's done this before. "What now?" Her question is hard; the silence in the car heavy.

"I suppose you're about to kidnap me," he replies after a moment, his tone as still as the ocean on a windless day. A side glance—his usually light eyes are dark as pitch in the mild obscurity around them. "Again."

She frowns. She isn't sure she's understanding. "What?"

He presses the button and starts the car. The engine comes alive with a roar. Guards are coming towards them, drawn to the noise. She can see them in the side mirror. "You want to escape, Alouette?" Harry asks, half-tauntingly.

He lowers the window on his side and swipes his black card against the keypad on the wall. The door of the garage opens to the black sky outside. The gates of the outer wall follow suit, obeying the order of their President.

He turns to look at her. He's never looked as beautiful as he does now—dark hair dishevelled in the northern wind coming from outside, reddened cheeks and wine-stained lips. Just looking at him makes her sick—she can't stand it. Here in the dead of night, the half-argument they had in his office earlier today feels miles away, and yet so close all the same. The corner of his lips turns up. "Then drive."

I hope you liked this chapter x
Miki