Kei

  Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

  --Albert Einstein

  I fall to the ground on hard pavement. And on soft earth under spreading boughs. And in shallow water at a river’s edge. And on a clear diamond floor high above the shining earth. And on raw stone deep within the planet.

  For a moment I am falling everywhere, feeling the impact through a hundred bodies, watching my surroundings through a hundred pairs of eyes.

  And a hundred minds join briefly together, and for an instant I understand. Then we splinter apart and my epiphany shatters with our momentary unity.

  I gasp and the minds recede, but I can feel them in the distance. No longer one with my thoughts, nor even pressing in around me. But having known them they cannot be forgotten.

  I shake myself as I sit up, like a bird shaking off water. My world is spinning, and instinctively I ground myself with the first thing I can.

  Eyes of impossible blue gaze straight into me – and every possible me beyond my own body. And I know I’ve found someone I can never hide from. Not me, nor any of my other selves.

  A girl crouches beside me, staring at me with her Arctic-blue eyes. “You remember. And you’ll forget. There’s too much to hold in a single mind, as you are now. The Past, the Present and innumerable Futures. You are the Key to the Lock, Kei Kimura, as she made you. But you are so much more.”

  She tilts her pale-blonde head as she regards me. But says nothing more. We stare at each other in silence, her words echoing inside me.

  Dante stirs and looks up. “Arden?” he asks.

  “Close,” she says. “Guess again.” She nods down at me. “Or guess who this—”

  “Kei!” Dante’s back on his feet and moving towards me. “Are you okay?”

  ***

  Dante

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  I grab Kei and hold her in something that’s less an embrace than a death grip.

  How is she alive? My best friend, back from a watery grave.

  “You know me,” Kei says, stunned and somehow relieved.

  I snort. “I don’t know many girls with naturally purple hair and eyes who answer to ‘Kei,’ Kei.”

  Her nose twitches. “I wouldn’t call my looks ‘natural.’”

  “Where’s your dad?” I demand. “Is Doc Yoshi teaching here?” My head’s spinning. I shake it, then lock my eyes on hers.

  ***

  Kei

  “I’ve lost all my memories,” I say. It’s getting easier to say that. Really, to lead with that. “But I remember you. I didn’t remember my father’s – Yoshi.” I nod. “That’s right. I always just called him Dad, or father. But people always said Yoshi in my memories—"

  “Wait, where is he?” Dante looks around at the crowd.

  “Lost,” I say. “Maybe gone.”

  He looks back at me and freezes. “Oh. Kei.” His strong arms are around me again. This time less to reassure himself I was more than a shade, but more to drive back whatever ghosts were haunting me in turn.

  I hug him back, fiercely. It’s been… a long time. My best friend, and I’d been afraid he was just as dead as he thought I was. “Thanks,” I tell him.

  Not that he’s done anything. But ever since we met at that chessboard when we were six, I always felt there was nothing we couldn’t handle when we were together.

  I suppose now we’re going to find out if that’s true.

  “What happened?” Dante asks. “They said you and Yoshi died diving in the ocean. A shark attack, or something. But Kieron never believed it. Or Lyra, or Kerry. Still, they never found the bodies. Even where we were, they should have been able to trace something.”

  “Dad figured out Kestrel’s endgame, and we ran.” I realize the truth of the words even as I speak them. But distantly, I remember the feeling that Dad never hated Kestrel for it, or allowed me to do so, either.

  ‘I disagree, but I do not despise. Kestrel is doing what she was made for, and doing it beautifully. I expect no more and no less. And the world may need her steel yet. The Tower’s terrible hunting falcon unhooded, and in flight.’ His voice comes to me easily now. Almost as though Dante’s presence has broken some dam within me.

  “Did she hurt you?” Dante asks, his eyes dark and intense.

  “Not directly,” I say. “And not intentionally, I think. She wants me for some plan of her own. Until then, I’m not allowed to die. Not if she can help it.” I think. My eyes narrow as I look from him to the Aspects to Lyra rising in our midst, and something occurs to me. “What happened to the Island? Why are you all here instead of there?”

  “I think Uncle Kieron shut it down after you… left.” Dante looks thoughtful, but still a little stricken. “He was in kind of a bad mood for the next five years, so I never really asked.” He shakes his head. “A lot happened after… wait, what did happen?”

  “A conversation better handled indoors,” Andrea remarks, her arms folded as she regards us. “We still have a few secrets worth keeping.”

  “But Kei’s not the only one with a bit of amnesia,” Anton remarks, walking past them. He points. “The Library? Or do we need somewhere more secure?”

  “We always need somewhere more secure,” Chris responds dryly. “But we’ll take what we can get.”

  “Can anyone come?” Hammersmith asks from above.

  I look up. And up. I haven’t forgotten the over 30-foot tall mech looming over us, because it’s impossible to do so if you’re conscious. But it says something about the company I keep that she’s maybe the fifth most-interesting acquaintance I’ve dealt with today. Maybe the tenth, if we’re counting Dragons and such.

  “You can,” Chris tells her. “But you’ll have to park outside.”

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