Ally liked to bury things.

Crusty earth gave way under her cracked fingertips as mounds of grainy dirt lodged underneath her nails. The soft scratching sound settled her into a steady rhythm, relaxing her as much as she ever relaxed. Digging had been her favorite thing to do as long as she could remember. Even before. She could remember clutching little rocks in her small fist, shaking them triumphantly in the air as her mother pretended to scold her for all the holes in their backyard.

Now, though, it was a way to spend time, a way to combat against the raging boredom of her life. She had already buried over six sticks. She had to do at least two more to reach her goal for the day. Not that it really mattered—nothing mattered in this wasteland.

The muggy air clung thick in her throat, but the tightness in her chest didn’t bother her. She’d been breathing the decaying air her whole life and had gotten used to the humid stench. Her mother used to worry it would ruin her lungs; her father used to grunt back that they had to stay.

What’s done is done, he would growl, effectively shutting down the conversation.

On that point, Ally could admit, he was right. The damage he’d done to Ally’s life was irreversible.

Ignoring the taste of rot that came with each breath, she gave a huff, blowing a piece of stringy blonde hair out of her face. Her kneecaps whined against the hard earth; her shoulders ached with the strain of leaning over for so long. But she had a goal to accomplish. So she disregarded the pain in her bones, the tightness in her chest, the blanket of dread that seemed to follow her everywhere.

And kept digging.

The sun rose as she worked, the light filtering through the smog. Tiny beads of sweat began to form on the back of her neck, dripping down the collar of her cloak. In the distance, someone screamed, then a stray dog howled. Ally hardly noticed. She dug until the hole was as deep as the length of her arm, then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the next stick. She tossed it into the hole without ceremony. A grunt escaped her as she reached across the opening to slide the excavated dirt back in, effectively burying the stick.

The broken branch hadn’t been anything special—just a piece of dry wood she’d found the day before, part of yesterday’s collection quest. Small. Insignificant. And now buried, never to be seen again, never to be acknowledged or missed.

Just like people. Just like her mother. Just like Ally.

Ally got to her feet and brushed her hands on her dirty pants, admiring her work. A scream sounded again, long and drawn out, until it abruptly cut off.

Just another day in the Molds.

For a moment, she watched the horizon through the hazy air, looking across the vast empty land and past the cluster of shacks beyond. For a moment, she let herself wonder what life was like outside this place. For a moment, she considered walking on and on until she found somewhere better. Anywhere.

But then that moment passed, and she remembered she could never leave. The Molds had marked her, the stench permanently etched into her skin in a way that she could never hope to wash off. There was nowhere else for a rat of the Molds. Definitely not for the child of Monty the Merciless and a dead mother nobody talked about. Her father had damned her to this years ago, ensuring Ally would always be a worthless stick and someday would be buried too. And that would be the end of it.

What’s done is done.

Lip curling in disgust, she stared at the sun rising over the land she hated so much. It burned her eyes, but she held her gaze, challenging the sun to give her something more than the fate of a stick.

I’d make you proud, she thought. I’d make everyone proud, if only you’d just let me.

Seconds passed and her eyes stung worse and worse. Finally, she growled and blinked away, pressing her palms into her eyes.

“Fine,” she muttered as colored spots danced along her vision. “You win.” The words burned her grainy, dirt coated mouth. “But someday,” she promised, “someday I will stare you down and I will win.” Win what, she didn’t know. Just something.

Brush rustled next to her. She jumped and turned, a shape moving out of the corner of her eye. Or was it still a sunspot? She wasn’t sure, but she did know one thing.

Out in the Molds, everything counted as a threat.

Muscles rigid, Ally clenched her teeth and jumped back, expecting the worst: a rabid stray dog, a ruthless neighbor, her drunken father. Instead, she found herself staring at a rabbit. A small, white rabbit, streaked with lines of dirt.

The creature stared at her, as if just as surprised as she was to find it wasn’t alone out here.

Once her surprise faded, Ally slowly reached inside her cloak pocket and pawed through her stowed rock collection. Her fist closed around the sharpest one, and she stared at the rabbit, imagining the best way to kill it.

She and Jesper would eat tonight. Actually eat, not just slurp up the mushed grains her brother mashed with water every day or get sick off of rancid meat from an old dog carcass they’d once found. They’d learned long ago that trying to trade for actual food themselves in the Molds could only be a death sentence—Jesper had nearly lost his hand the last time they tried— and Monty was only interested in stocking their cupboards with ale.

But this…this rabbit was a gift from the sky. She just had to kill it and somehow skin it. Her brother wouldn’t go near the animal while it was bloody, but she could figure out how to skin it herself. Couldn’t be much harder than the rotting dog. The rabbit was smaller, sure, but it would be fresh and untouched by decay. A rare miracle.

At the thought of something warm—of meat—Ally’s mouth started watering and her stomach grumbled painfully. She could practically smell it now, feel the first bite of meat sliding down her scratchy throat and spreading warmth throughout her bony limbs. She imagined her brother’s look of surprised pride at what she was able to do, all on her own.

It was an effort to keep from licking her lips as she took a hesitant step forward. The rabbit cocked its head, black eyes unblinking.

And took off.

Shouting a curse, Ally lurched after it, her worn boots skidding along the uneven ground. The rabbit leapt quick and fast, effortlessly dodging dips and rocks that made Ally stumble. She hissed through her teeth as the distance between her and the rabbit grew larger and larger, her hope of dinner—of a victory—getting farther away with each breath.

With one last push, the rabbit hopped over a rock and disappeared.

Ally cursed again when she skidded to a stop and saw the hole. Collapsing to her knees, she stuck her face in the opening, hoping she would come nose to nose with the vermin. But a small tunnel yawned open before her, showing nothing but dirt and darkness.

Jumping to her feet, she kicked at the hole and screamed at the sky, hurtling her rock as hard as she could. It bounced uselessly against the ground, and that made her scream in frustration again.

Stupid rabbit.

Stupid rabbit.

Her fit of rage passed eventually. Breathing heavily, she glanced around the wasteland before trudging back to her house. She never went back unless she absolutely had to, but she knew Jes would be looking for her today. And she’d show up empty handed, as always.

“Stupid rabbit,” she growled under her breath as she walked. She should’ve smashed its skull the moment she saw it. She should’ve waited to chase it with the hope it would come back. She should’ve just kept digging. Now she had two extra sticks to bury tomorrow.

Ally’s footsteps slowed until she stopped. Perking up, she turned around to glance behind her. A whisper of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

Without another thought, she stomped back over to the hole and filled it with dirt.

“There,” she said once she finished, brushing her hands on her dusty pants. “Now you’re just like the rest of us.”

And with that, she started the long walk back home.

* * * * * * * *

Jesper really wasn’t good for anything.

He winced as his tower of rocks wobbled, then toppled over, pounding against the broken table like a violent rain. He’d been at this for over an hour and he hadn’t been able to get it right.

Heaving a silent sigh, he crouched down to recover the fallen rocks from the floor. Each was about the size of his palm, with a few smaller exceptions, and were the smoothest, prettiest, most interesting rocks he could find. He’d been collecting them for two weeks now, refining his selection process as he went, and had spent the morning scrubbing them all clean. These rocks had to be the best the Molds had to offer. He was halfway sure of it.

The house creaked and groaned as he went back to work. The humid air wafted in through the holes in the walls, making every breath stick in his lungs. It was never completely silent in the Molds—the sounds of lost, desperate, and warped souls never truly died off—but Monty had been gone the last few days, his time overtaken by work. And that meant brief peace. It meant Jesper could work on his creation in the kitchen without fear of being bothered instead of holing up in his tiny, shared room or just finding somewhere else to be, like Ally usually did.

These days, he saw his sister even less than his overworked father. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to stay away from the house. He didn’t try to stop her either. She just checked in with him every other day, sometimes two or three, before disappearing again. He knew she had nowhere to go—he’d gone with her often as she wandered looking for the perfect places to bury her collection of sticks. At first, her leaving made him worried, as nobody in the Molds was ever a friend, and stumbling upon anyone could mean trouble. Especially since they had never been taught how to defend themselves with magic, or anything else really. But Ally was smart and stayed in the abandoned part of the wasteland. She’d made that her life, considering her stick burials as important as breathing.

Today, though, she’d be coming back. And he had to be ready.

As if the stars had set up the joke, a knock sounded on the door: two quick ones, a slow one, then three fast ones. Jesper gasped and scrambled to push the rocks together on the table.

“It’s safe,” he called once the knock had finished. Despite his harried work, he still winced when the door banged open behind him.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened to me today,” Ally snapped as she strode in, her black cloak billowing around her ankles. She had a constant sarcastic growl to her voice, so you could never quite tell if she was insulting or threatening you. While he wished she would smile more—genuinely smile because she had reason to—he had come to find her no nonsense attitude endearing, if not a little frightening at times.

Officially out of time, Jesper gave a quiet sigh and stilled his hands, slowly turning to face his sister. She had her mouth open, but she closed it as her eyes narrowed on his creation. Jesper’s gaze flicked to the table and he winced. It truly was pathetic.

But he opened his palm in presentation anyway and said, “Happy birthday Ally.”

The right corner of her mouth pulled up in a sly smirk: Ally’s version of a smile. She took a few steps forward, crossing the space with reverent ease.

“What is it?” she asked.

Jesper winced again. “It’s…well it’s supposed to be…a ca-ake.” The word stuttered out of him. “Kind of.”

Ally raised a sharp eyebrow. “A cake…out of rocks?”

“Yeah. I mean, we…we couldn’t make a real cake—I mean, I wanted to, but obviously we can’t, so I ma-ade one out of your favorite things instead.”

Ally reached out and plucked a rock from the sad pile. Her thumb brushed along the edge of it. “These are good rocks,” she said. Jesper couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not.

“I pi-cked them out,” he told her. “But if…if you don’t like them…we can pick new…new ones. Or you can…you can. I know you’re better at…at it.”

The smirk grew ever so slightly. “Jes, you didn’t have to do this.”

Jesper released a breath. She liked it. “I just wanted your day to be special.” Of course, they had no idea if it was really Ally’s birthday—Monty would never care to say, so she had picked out the day when she was five, and Jesper made sure to celebrate it every year. It was the only reason he kept so careful track of the days as they went by, so he never missed it. An unreal birthday, but a birthday just the same.

Ally took a few minutes inspecting each rock, picking it up and testing the weight in her palm, studying the edges. Jesper allowed himself to relax slightly. She wouldn’t spend time on it if she didn’t like it, even to spare his feelings. Maybe he’d done something right after all.

Once she finished, Ally reached out and took his pinky, holding his one finger in her entire fist. The gesture didn’t work as well as when they were younger, when his little finger was all baby Ally could hope to hang on to, but neither of them had been able to let it go.

She squeezed his finger tightly. “I wish she were here.” Ally’s voice always pricked with sharp spokes, but it was softest when she spoke of Her.

A jolt went through Jesper, one hard enough to make his bones ache. He pursed his lips and bit the inside of his cheek, willing his mind to stay clear, his eyes not to play tricks on him and materialize the woman who gave birth to them sitting on their torn couch. He’d do just about anything for his sister, but talking about Her was one of the few things he just couldn’t give her. It was too much.

He forced himself to meet Ally’s eyes and nod, at least acknowledging the loss in her expression, before turning back to his plain gift. That was the most he could do.

Ally opened her mouth to say something, but a crunching sound outside cut her off. She had time to let out a panicked breath while every muscle in Jesper’s body seized up, then the door flew open, slamming hard against the dented wall.

Monty filled the entire door frame. He had to stoop slightly to get inside, and the already tiny room instantly became much too cramped. In a second, he was towering over them, his thick blacksmith build making Jesper shrink himself smaller. In comparison to his hulking father, Jesper was one of Ally’s sticks.

The air went taut. Jesper and Ally ducked their heads slightly and looked at the ground, forcing themselves to be as still as possible. Maybe if they didn’t move, they wouldn’t be noticed. Maybe Monty would be too drunk to pick up on the presence.

It was too much to hope for. Monty scowled when he saw his children, as if unable to believe they were still here, that they were still alive in this hellhole he’d brought them to.

Monty ambled forward and peered at the pile of rocks on the table. A flicker of interest glimmered in his stormy gray eyes, probably hoping the table was somehow full of food, but it quickly snuffed out once he registered the rocks.

“Interesting,” Monty muttered, his gruff voice as scratchy as the bushy gray beard that took up most of his square face. “Still not good for anything, are you Jes? A real man puts food on the table, not useless pebbles.”

Jesper could feel Ally’s internal wince at hearing her most prized possessions called useless. It made Jesper want to cry— those were all she had—but he knew better than to do that in front of Monty.

“So-sorry, um, sir,” Jesper murmured, his eyes still trained on his father’s boots stained with mud, soot, and blood. He tried not to imagine whose blood it could be. “I, um, I bro-ought them, brought them in. For, for Ally.”

Monty’s eyes narrowed, and Jesper did his best to keep from shuddering. “My boy sounds stupid. Stupid stutter.”

Jesper swallowed hard and waited to see if a punishment would come for that, or worse, they’d both be forced to sit there until Jesper could speak a full sentence without a single stutter. Nothing rattled Ally more than having to sit still in the same room as their father, and Jesper hated himself when it was his fault she felt so trapped.

Thankfully, Monty just made a noncommittal grunt and stepped around the table. “What’s done is done,” he muttered as he started to search their cupboard. They all knew it was empty. Monty worked as a blacksmith for Pepperjack, Elaria’s ruthless crime lord. Some said that Pepperjack was even richer than King Asher himself, but apparently none of that gold could be spared to feed employees and their families. Or, Jesper suspected, his father actually did get paid by his bloodthirsty employer—Monty was the best in his field, after all—but the money went to rent payment and the need for ale in his blood.

Regardless, it left his children with nothing.

“Why do you need them?” Monty grumbled at the rocks on the table. It had been years since either of them had heard him use Ally’s name, much less acknowledged she existed. “Taking up space.”

“The-they were, um, they were a present.” Maybe if Jesper complied they could both get out of this interaction unscathed. “We, and uh we will mo-ove them.”

Monty had his back to them as he reached above the cupboard for a bottle of ale. Jesper leaned forward to grab the rocks, slipping out of Ally’s grip, and the tiniest gasp escaped her lips when their contact broke. Sixteen and nineteen years old now, and Monty could still make both of them feel like a tiny child with one breath. Sometimes Jesper wondered if he would be forever internally frozen, stuck back in the past while his body kept growing, oblivious.

Jesper winced at the gulping sound as his father downed a quarter of the bottle in one impressive swig.

“A present.” Monty’s repetition of the word was slurred. “What for?”

Jesper ensured his voice stayed utterly neutral, not a hint of stepping out of line, no trace of challenging why a father would forget the day his daughter was born. “Her, um, birthday, sir.”

Something in the air changed. Crackled. Jesper glanced up from his hurried collecting just in time to get a vicious backhand across the face. He lurched and fell to his knees, the rocks in his arms clattering all over the floor.

“Her birthday?” Monty roared. He smashed his bottle of ale against the table, then upended the whole thing. Rocks flew everywhere. “Her birthday?”

Jesper’s bones quaked inside him. His head rattled. He tasted blood. But he forced himself to scramble to his feet and stand, to plant himself in front of his sister just as their father swiped at her. He missed and they took the opening.

They scampered back into their room, slamming the door shut just as Monty’s fists pounded on it. Ally and Jesper pushed their backs up against the door, straining all their muscles, using every ounce of willpower to stand against their father’s brute strength. If his father really tried, they all knew he could get through with a snap of his finger.

“Birthday?” Monty raged from the other side of the door. “I wish you both were dead! I wish you both were dead! Dead like your blasted mother!”

Ally’s breath caught. Jesper’s heart pounded in his throat, pulse roaring in his ears. He could sense his body, but he didn’t feel inside of it, didn’t feel like anything at all.

Eternities passed before Monty gave up. They heard him grumbling as he stomped around, kicking a rock or crunching glass every couple steps. The house settled back into fragile calm.

Going slow, silent, Jesper reached into his pocket and pulled out the one rock he’d saved from the disastrous gift. Gingerly, he offered it to his sister.

“Happy birthday,” Jesper whispered as loudly as he dared, ignoring his throbbing lip.

Taking the rock, Ally rested her head on his shoulder and squeezed his pinky tight.

* * * * * * * *

A deep rumble in the earth jolted Jesper awake. His joints whined as he sat up, rubbing his crusty eyes. A lance of pain shot across his mouth coated in spots of dried blood, and he winced as he remembered the night before. The disastrous birthday party. Filtered sunlight poked through the boarded up window, the lines of light illuminating the two flat mattresses on the floor. Jesper had fallen asleep with his back against the door; Ally was gone.

For a moment, he couldn’t remember what had woken him up. A rumble in the earth? Or had it just been Monty slamming the door?

Jesper got to his feet and put his head against the door, straining his ears. The place was silent, not a grumble or a snore to be heard, though Monty slept less and less the older he got.

A knot loosened in Jesper’s chest. Monty was gone. He must’ve imagined it.

Stretching his arms, Jesper opened his door and started to step out into the mess of a kitchen when another deep tremor rippled through the earth, knocking him into the wall. Screams sounded in the distance, followed by another explosion and enraged shouting—loud enough to be heard even from their shack.

Jesper gulped. A lot of awful things happened in the Molds, but it never felt like the earth itself was going to crack open.

Stumbling through the mess of broken bottles, dirty rocks, and the overturned table, Jesper managed to make it to the front door and swing it open.

The smoke hit him first. His eyes stung as he coughed and stepped outside. Another tremor nearly threw him to the ground, and his gaze tracked the smoke in the sky to find the source.

Pepperjack’s.

When Monty had first brought their family to the Molds and sold his soul to Elaria’s monster, he had insisted on building their shack as far from his employer’s estate as he could get while still being in the crime lord’s range. Even as kids, even after their mother died, they knew never to get any closer. Always stay as far away as possible no matter what you saw or what you heard or who you wanted to help. Just stay away.

And everyone was so afraid of Monty, they stayed away from his kids too.

But with his father gone, his sister missing, and his world on fire, Jesper ignored his ingrained fears and forced himself to run for the flames.