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“You know, it’s illegal to illegally leap to the Forbidden Cities,” Fitz remarked.
Keefe rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no duh.”
“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Fitz persisted.
Keefe waved a hand in dismissal. “Pfft, literally no one cares about your morals, Fitzipoo.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Oooh, Fitzipoo’s my very best friend,” Keefe crooned.
Fitz’s lips twitched in an attempt not to smile. “Shut up.”
“Never!” Keefe declared. “But seriously, it’s too late now. Don’t cry over spilt milk after it’s already spilt.”
“That is not how it goes. I should never have agreed to this.”
“Probably,” Keefe said cheerily. “But you did, so too bad.”
“Remind me again why we’re doing this,” Fitz retorted drily.
“Because we haven’t had any cool expeditions recently, and I am in dire need for some ice cream straight from human town.”
Fitz closed his eyes. “I miss it when it used to be like this.”
“Like what?” Keefe asked though he was pretty sure he knew what Fitz was referencing.
“Us being us. We haven’t been the same since you left for the Neverseen.”
There was a brief moment of silence, but Keefe knew they needed to talk about it. It had been two years and they hadn’t talked about it yet, letting it grow and grow until it made a gap in their friendship that seemed impossible to breach.
“Yeah,” Keefe said quietly. “That was a really stupid decision.”
“Yeah,” Fitz agreed. “The stupidest.”
Keefe was tempted to crack a joke to make light of it because his own feelings were much too hard to deal with, but instead he attempted a smile.
It was more of a half-smile, riddled with pain.
“I know,” he admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Fitz said but it wasn’t, they both knew that. It was anything but okay.
“So…” Keefe dragged out. “Care for some human town ice cream?”
Fitz laughed. “Yeah, ice cream sounds good.”
“Cool. Let’s go ask a human person where the ice cream is.”
“But you don’t speak English.”
Keefe scoffed dramatically. “I’m a super powerful polyglot, remember? English is,” he switched to said language, “easy.”
“Show off,” Fitz grumbled.
“You’re just jealous,” Keefe shouted over his shoulder, already approaching a “human person”.
“Excuse me,” Keefe said with an exaggerated Southern accent. “Do you know where the ice cream is in this human territory?”
“What he means to say is do you know where the most native to here ice cream shop might be?”
The man shrugged.
“Did I not speak English?” Keefe asked, switching back to the Enlightened Language.
“No, you did. He might speak another language. Humans have a lot.”
“Hmm.” Keefe paused. “How do you know which one?”
“Uh, not sure. Just gesture or something.”
Keefe gestured to the man then to his mouth.
The man shrugged again.
Keefe scowled. “Okay, new human person, I’m not really liking this one.”
He approached a woman. “Excuse me, human, do you know where the ice cream is?”
“Ice cream?” she said in a thick accent that Fitz couldn’t place. “You want an ice cream shop, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Keefe said slowly. “So, where might that be?”
“Over there, there is an ice cream parlor, you might try there.”
Keefe nodded. “Okay, thank you, human!”
Turning back to Fitz as the woman walked away, Keefe eagerly said, “You heard the lady. Ice cream parlor place it is! What’s a parlor?”
Fitz had visited the Forbidden Cities many times, but he still wasn’t used to it.
He walked onto the street, ogling all the humans. It was nice to be with Keefe again. For a while, it had seemed their friendship would never recover.
Someone screamed, and he turned to see a car roaring toward him, only a few feet away.
It was as if everything was in slow motion, yet somehow dizzyingly fast at the same time.
He had just enough time to be thankful Keefe had rushed ahead in his speed to get to the ice cream when the car hit him.
Keefe watched as his best friend flew into the air and hit the ground with a crunch.
“No!”
He refused. No. This couldn’t be happening. They were elves, they weren’t supposed to die like humans. If death was to steal one of the two of them, it was supposed to be by saving the world, not by a car while they were getting ice cream.
He stumbled to Fitz and collapsed to his knees as soon as he was beside him. Tears blurred his vision but that didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that Fitz was dying and he wasn’t supposed to die.
People swarmed them, but he ignored them.
“No, Fitz, no, you have to be okay. Don’t leave me.” His voice broke as he voiced his desperate plea.
Fitz cracked his eyes open, blood streaming down his face. Everything about him looked wrong. “I don’t think I’ll make it much longer,” he managed through struggling breaths.
“Yes, you will,” Keefe insisted. “You can’t…”
His voice trailed off before he could voice the possibilities because it couldn’t be real, and if he said it, it would be ever so apparent.
Fitz lifted a shaky hand and grasped Keefe’s. “Take care of Biana for me. And Sophie. Don’t let them…”
“What? Let them what? And I won’t need to because you’ll be there to do it!” Keefe said frantically.
“No. Make sure they’re happy, and my parents do. Don’t let this break them.”
How was Keefe supposed to do that when this was breaking him?
“Fitz,” he said weakly. “Fitz.”
This was all his fault. If only he hadn’t made them go to the Forbidden Cities.
“It’s not your fault,” Fitz said like he had read his thoughts, though Keefe knew he hadn’t.
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s not.” Fitz’s breathing was slowing, and his eyes drifted shut. “Tell me it’s okay to go.”
It wasn’t, it never would be.
“It’s okay,” Keefe choked out, his shoulders shaking with sobs.