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It’s a sunny day when Max and Joseph trace a path into the woods hand-in-hand. They’re young here; Max is only just beginning to dip her toes into mindless rage and Joseph’s fingers are splitting beneath the strings of his lute in the absence of calluses.
The woods have been the barrier of their world as long as Max and Joseph can remember. And here’s something: they are still that – Max-and-Joseph. Still two minds of the same heart. That will be important later.
The trees cut a jagged edge into the sunset, cast shadows at high noon, and sing to Max-and-Joseph in their dreams. On the outskirts, Joseph has been telling them stories, convincing the wasps to wake in the sleepy heat of summer and waltz across her palm.
It was Max who took Joseph’s hand – of course it was. Joseph is content to watch Max run as far away as she wants to go – so long as she always comes back for tea. When it comes to the forest, Max tells Joseph to forget the tea. “There must be an end somewhere. I want to find it. Will you come with me?”
Her outstretched hand had looked almost clawed in the light as Joseph stared at it. A long beat passed before she took it.
Either the sun has set, or the canopy is too thick for the light to pass through. Joseph’s throat hurts, and Max’s knees are bloody from where she tripped on a root.
Somewhere, a branch snaps. The end must be close; a clearing, perhaps a lake. A beautiful woman with crystals hanging from her ears who tells them they’ve walked so far, that they’re so brave, that they should get sweets for their troubles.
There is no end; there is only the woods, dark and creaking.
They do not stop – they are stopped. There is something ahead of them. It blinks its many eyes and growls, low and long. They do not see its teeth, but they know they’re there.
Max lets out a scream and Joseph runs. Turns and runs, drags Max along with her as she goes. Her wrist is screaming, Max is so heavy, and even as they run, they hear it following them.
They never had a chance. What armor do they have – what rage could Max find? Joseph’s lute could not charm the thing, let alone his pretty words, which are better suited for people than many-eyed, clawed monsters who really, are just hungry.
They have but a few seconds rest after they give up. Even as they catch their breath, their chests rise and fall in tandem.
They fall like this – Max-and-Joseph, still hand in hand, hearts giving out at the same second.
~*~
It’s not a good dream. Max is floating on a cloud, rising and rising and rising, and the sun is warm and buttery. The world smells like chocolate chip cookies and orange juice, but when she stretches her palm out to search for Joseph’s, she grabs at nothing but air.
It’s not a good dream. Pearly gates approach her and she screams.
~*~
It’s not a good dream.
“I stood in the clearing and made my map. From the heavens a girl descended, and she said–”
Joseph spins tales before an audience of hundreds; they’re all here to hear him tell her stories. They clamor, waiting for the next word to fall from her lips.
“Max?”
The audience is confused, full of people Joseph has never seen, and Joseph’s heart is strangely out of sync – arrhythmic and slow.
“Max?”
She turns and finds a white door with a pearl knob behind her.
It’s not a good dream. They swing the door open and fall into the sky.
~*~
Max’s mother carries diamonds in her pockets, given to her by the church to which she tithes. In gold she pays them, and in diamonds they let her save lives.
She’s a cleric, and spends most of her time working out of the village apothecary. Max-and-Joseph, two headed and one hearted, have never seen her use the diamonds.
There is a difference between Revivify and Resurrection. One must happen within the minute of death; the other must happen within a century. Max’s mother can cast both, and that is what the diamonds are for.
It takes an hour each to bring them back after they have been laid before her. The table is barely big enough to support the two of them together, but she cannot bring herself to force their fingers apart where they are inked.
She lays out the diamonds, two of them side by side. Then she hesitates.
Anya, her aide, busies herself with herbs and blades, cleaning and cleansing. She keeps her back to Max’s mother as she stares at the two of them.
She’s trying to decide which one to bring back first.
~*~
Max is in the cellar. Her hair is long and she is so, so tired. Her rage is all but spent, mindless and frenzy and reckless, clawing at the walls and listening to her palace burn around her.
Her throat hurts and her heart beats out of sync.
She waits there for hours – days? She can’t tell.
It’s Joseph who finds her in the wreckage, picking through and softly calling her name.
She’s made herself as small as she can, her gown tattered and stained. She doesn’t know where her crown has gone.
Her advisor crouches before her, sash somehow still in place, face covered in soot. He reaches out a hand to her.
“There must be an end somewhere,” Joseph says. “I want to find it.”
Their palm is warm when Max takes it.
~*~
They have to climb to see the wreckage in full. There’s mountains to the west of Max’s palace, in the nearby distance at the end of her husband’s gardens.
She rolls his name around in her head – Emilio, Emilio, Emilio. Emilio, like a match striking into flame. Emilio, like a fireplace in winter. Emilio, like a shot of whiskey.
When they crest the hill, Max’s knees give out beneath her and she collapses. She weeps. She screams.
She doesn’t. She holds her posture, slips her fingers from Joseph’s.
Her husband – Emilio, Emilio, Emilio. He’d done so much.
Her palace is – was – mostly glass, and it’s been shattered. Nothing remains of the curtains, the sash windows, the mirrors in the throne room.
She wonders if even the diamonds have been crushed into dust. Emilio, Emilio, Emilio.
“Do you know where he went?”
Joseph turns to look at her with pitiless eyes. “I didn’t follow him.”
“Why?” She keeps her voice cool and collected. The nearest forest is leagues away. Max built her kingdom in a place of grass and rock.
“It seemed like he wanted to leave.”
Max sinks slowly to her knees. “I hate him.”
The grass scratches her ankles and she chokes down a scream. “I hate him.”
She’ll never light a fire again.
Behind her, she hears Joseph follow her to the ground, tentatively sinking a hand into her hair. She leans her face into her hands and lets herself weep, if only briefly.
Clouds pass overhead and Max’s hair is braided and unbraided, and her fury flows through her in waves, twisting with the speed of Joseph’s fingers.
Joseph begins to hum, lacing magic into the tune. It’s an old song, one that Max’s mother sang to her on sleepless nights.
“Remember when we died?” Joseph asks, still combing through her hair. Max leans back, far back, places her head in their lap.
“I remember.” She whispers it, eyes shut tight even as Joseph’s head blocks the sun.
The grass scratches her legs, the old scars where the thing in the forest took her flesh.
Her eyes flutter open and she studies Joseph, concentrating. The wrinkle between her brows – how long has that been there? Their cheeks have lost the baby fat. There’s gold liner beneath his eyes, soot-smudged but still there.
“It might happen again.” Her voice breaks on it, a sob pushing through. She remembers her empty palm, the cloud and the pearly gates.
Joseph meets her eyes.
Clouds recede. Max falls.
“Max Novikov,” Joseph takes her hand, fingers over her pulse point. “I have loved you a thousand times. I think I might love you a thousand more. I remember better than you, even, when we were a monster of our o own design. I woke before you by your own mother’s hand. I will not put my eyes on you in death again.”
Max sits up. “Joseph–”
“You will age and wrinkle and you will remember. You will smell smoke and feel the weight of gold upon your head. Rage is your god, Max, and you were a fool to think you could take its place.”
The wind picks up, whipping around them and dragging Max to her feet. Their hands swing close but do not touch. Her heartbeat, a treacherous, rhythmic thing, snaps into place.
“You will walk in the tatters of your people and you will know what it was like to live under your false divinity. I will rescue your kingdom, but forgive me if I take some pleasure in watching you burn.”
From his pocket, Joseph produces a single match. “That is my gift to you, Max Novikov, queen of rage. Remember and do not think you will ever put the fire out in full again.”