When he woke, he was ready to challenge the gate again. It had been his routine for so long that he was genuinely confused when the gate wasn’t there to block his path.

  When his sleepy brain finally caught up with reality, he jumped up in joy. For once, it wasn’t just the ever-ticking clock that drove him forward. It was a factor, of course, time was running out far faster than he’d like. But when Felix took his first step forward, it wasn’t with the crushing deadline on his mind. He was excited to see what was next.

  Felix’s walk quickly turned into a run. Much to his surprise, the path beneath him was silent. When he’d first walked his path so many months ago, it was eager to teach him with every step, but now it was silent.

  A quiet hope began to build. Perhaps he had really learned all he needed to complete his journey. As he ran, his path kept splitting, but every time he looked down one of the offered side paths, he could feel that it was optional. He could return to it at any time and learn from the knowledge it offered, but the choice was his.

  So he kept running, branch after branch, each one trying to tempt him off his path, yet he could feel the end in front of him. If he kept going, he would reach it.

  Worry built inside him. The final gate always carried a risk of death, and given just how frequently he’d died in his first gate, he wasn’t sure if he would be ready to take on the final gate.

  Uncertainty didn’t slow his step. His feet kept hitting the path at a steady rhythm. Path after path passed him by until he’d long lost count of the number offered to him. Eventually, it changed, and he reached a stone plaza. In its centre, a huge golden gate stood, offering him a chance. He could feel it. Against all odds, he’d managed it. He reached the final gate in time.

  He couldn’t hold back tears of relief as he thought of telling Lara and Aster that they wouldn’t need to leave him behind. For months, he’d pushed himself beyond what normal aspirants could even understand. Every waking moment, he’d pushed himself. He’d suffered through blood, sweat, tears, humiliation, and death.

  He blinked away tears as he slowly walked forward, placing his hand on the gate. He knew from speaking with the girls that he wouldn’t be thrown right into the final gate. The Ways would tell him if they thought he was ready and offer him a choice.

  With nervous excitement, Felix waited with his hand on the gate. It took only a moment for the Ways to offer its verdict. It spoke to him not in words. It simply conveyed its meaning to him the same way the stones on his path had. There were no words that needed to be interpreted or clearly defined, and no overly specific language meant to ensure mutual understanding.

  The verdict was simply known to him, leaving no room for interpretation.

  Death.

  Inexcapable and utterly certain. If Felix set foot beyond that gate, there would be no clever tactic that could save him, no clawing victory from the jaws of defeat. If he attempted that trial, the only thing that awaited him was death.

  Felix fell to his knees, hands still on the gate as it constantly conveyed its understanding to him. Felix wept even as he understood the reason the Ways showed him his final gate when he clearly couldn’t pass it.

  The Ways had told him that he needed to be patient, yet for six months he’d done everything in his power to press forward, to go as fast as he could, to keep up.

  To not be left behind.

  The path beyond the first gate didn’t need to speak to him, because this was his lesson. His path as a Traveller demanded patience and perseverance, not haste. This was his choice. He could keep pushing, but down that road was a certain death.

  He knew this wasn’t just about the Ways. It wasn’t about this one gate. If he wanted to be a Traveller, then this was his fate. A marathon, not a race.

  Sitting at his favourite spot in the garden, a little hill away from the hustle and bustle of the Crossroad, Felix leaned his back against a tree while he waited.

  Today was a little special. He’d asked for quite a few favours, and he had to sneak his own bedding out of the dorms, but he’d managed to set up a little picnic. He cooked the food himself and convinced Agrona to give him some of his favourite drinks. Alvara had helped him form a couple of bushels of flowers, far more beautiful than anything he could come up with on his own.

  He didn’t have to wait long, but even the short wait felt like forever. Eventually, he spotted Lara and Aster climbing the hill, and he quickly jumped up and waved at them.

  “Hey! Over here!”

  “Felix, what’s all this? Agrona told us to meet you here.”

  Felix nervously shuffled his feet. With a sigh, he decided to just rip the bandage off.

  “Well… I should tell you this first. I passed my challenge.”

  “Felix! Does that mean?!”

  Felix shook his head, not wanting Lara to get her hopes up.

  “No. I… I reached my final trial, but… there’s just no way.” He shook his head and quickly explained everything he’d figured out about the trial. The oppressive feeling of certain death that prevented him from continuing, and the branching paths he’d need to explore to keep growing.

  “That’s not why I called you here, I… I don’t want our last day together to be sad.” He handed each of them a bunch of flowers. Lara’s was a beautiful bouquet of little white flowers with a few sprigs of rosemary and some lovely violet lilies to add colour.

  Aster’s had the same base of white flowers, but in its center, it had a large rose-like flower that matched the caramel colour of her hair. Little flowers with different shades of yellow and orange spiraled out from the center through the rest of the bouquet. The flowers had a strange smell that reminded him of cinnamon.

  “I cooked it myself.” He gestured towards the food.

  “We should celebrate what you two did. It’s amazing, no one else is even close. We–”

  “I’m not going!” Lara looked up at him, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “I’m not– you can’t make me!”

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  He stared at Lara. She’d gone from looking like his twin to looking like his older sister in the time they’d been there, but watching her break down at the thought of separating made him feel a little warm inside. She’d changed, just like he had, but in many ways she was still the same.

  Felix nodded. It earned him a sharp glare from Aster, but he shot her a quick, reassuring smile.

  Taking Lara by the hand, he pulled her over to the blanket and sat down with her. Instead of trying to convince her, he just sat with her in silence as they watched the Crossroad below.

  After a while, he couldn’t help it. He let slip a little chuckle. Lara quickly turned to give him a death glare. He could feel Aster's eyes drilling into his back.

  “Sorry, I just remembered the time Claire gave us our first training swords.”

  Lara’s eyes softened.

  “You mean when we pestered her for so many lessons that she started taking meals on the roof to get away from us?”

  Felix laughed.

  “That too, but I was talking about when Grandma wanted to take them away. You said the same thing to her. ‘I’m not going to! You can’t make me!’ I thought for sure she was going to ground you until you turned twelve.”

  Lara chuckled.

  “You underestimated me. How could she say no to little’ol me… You think the staffs she got us are still around?”

  Felix shook his head.

  “Nah, they broke. James and I used them as stilts when we set up that obstacle course in the backyard. We buried them near the creek by Miss Fletcher's house to hide the evidence.”

  Lara laughed and looked at him like he was an idiot.

  “We never played with them. If you just put them back in the closet, no one would have noticed.”

  Felix looked at her with an exaggerated look of horror.

  “No way! Could you imagine if Grandma found them? She would have thought we broke them while playing with them. If she thought we had any interest in becoming mages, she’d have been insufferable!”

  The two of them laughed. The silence that followed didn’t feel nearly as heavy anymore. They just sat, side by side, watching the Crossroad fill with aspirants.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little silly?” Felix asked her.

  “What is?”

  Felix waved at the Crossroad.

  “Doesn’t it seem a little small from up here?”

  Lara looked at him, clearly not quite understanding what he was getting at.

  He thought about how best to put it when he remembered.

  “Do you remember your first time on the Ways? Did you try to see where the paths ended?”

  “Of course.”

  “Exactly! Now think of how far you had to Travel to get to your final gate. Compare that with what you saw when you tried to see the end of your path.”

  Felix gave it a moment to sink in.

  “Now look at the Crossroad again, what do you see?”

  Lara was quiet for a long time, long enough that Felix started to wonder if she would even answer.

  “It’s small.”

  He nodded.

  “When we got here, I wanted to be some great hero from the stories.”

  “A Starfarer, whose sword could sunder stars! I remember.” Lara said the first part while puffing out her chest and staring off into the distance.

  Felix felt the heat rise to his face. He quickly looked back to see if Aster had heard. She had the decency to pretend the leaves of the tree they sat under held some great mystery. Felix got the distinct impression that she might have heard the story of their trip to the Crossroad in far more detail than he would have liked.

  Felix elbowed Lara, making her laugh.

  “Point is.” He tried hard to force the topic change.

  “Now I just want to see what's at the end of that path.”

  Lara nodded.

  “Me too. I want to see what’s at the end.”

  He let the words hang between them, like he wanted to give them room in the conversation, like it would let them grow into something more substantial than what they were.

  “You need to go Lara.” He couldn’t keep the sadness from his voice.

  He shot a glance at her to see that she’d already started crying. She pursed her lips to hold back any sound.

  “Not because I want us to be apart. It’s because I want us to be together for the rest of our journey. Until we can see what’s at the end.”

  Lara stopped holding back the sounds of her sobs as she nodded.

  Felix held her for a long time as they watched the crossroad.

  Eventually, a sound from behind them caught their attention. They turned around to see Aster digging into the food Felix had prepared. She gave them a sheepish look.

  “Sorry.”

  That was enough to break the mood. The rest of the picnic went the way Felix wanted it to. It was a celebration. Whenever one of them got a little too quiet or started to look sad, the other two would drag them out of their slump. As if by tacit agreement, they’d all decided that there’d been enough sadness for one day.

  Even if Felix’s cooking couldn’t match Agrona’s, the fact that he made everything himself made the meal all the more enjoyable.

  When they looked back over everything that had happened over the past six months, it wasn’t with sadness. Without the pressure of the deadline weighing on them, they could instead focus on what they’d accomplished and how far they’d come.

  When they headed back after enjoying the picnic Felix grabbed a moment to speak with Aster.

  “Take care of her will you?”

  Aster nodded.

  “And take care of yourself too ok?”

  She nodded again.

  “When all this is over, I mean, the next time we see each other– What I mean to say is, I’d be happy if you were there. When we find out what’s at the end of the Path.”

  Felix could feel his face heat up at the awkward invitation.

  “I might not have made it in time, but without your help I’m not sure I’d even have made it this far.”

  From the corner of his eye he could see Aster blushing as well.

  “I’ll come along.” Aster’s voice was so soft it was hard to hear.

  The next day, Felix waited with the girls for the guardian to come pick them up. Their luggage already in hand.

  When the guardian finally showed up, Felix found himself unintentionally mimicking his grandmother when she’d seen him and Lara off at the pier. He hurriedly made sure that their jackets were on right while rattling off a list of concerns. Everything from asking them to look out for each other to making sure they’d packed their toothbrushes.

  It was only when the guardian started chuckling that he realised what he was doing. He quickly righted himself and took a step back.

  “Right well, it seems everything is in order.” He winced, for a moment he sounded like his dad.

  “I’ll miss you guys, be safe. Take care of each other."

  “We will. Take care of yourself, too. Try not to miss us too much.”

  The two gave him one final hug before it was time to leave.

  The guardian turned around and, with a wave of her hand, split the air, opening up a portal. After ushering them through, she stepped through it without looking back.

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