#rqbb2023

[bluejayblueskies]

the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world | phynoma

[ID: Two pictures of two hand-bound books, the first of which shows their front covers and the second of which shows their spines and part of their front covers at an angle. The leftmost book is bound in yellow bookcloth and has a hand-embroidered smiling mouth with bloody teeth on the bottom portion of the front and back cover. The title, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world" is in the top right corner in black as well as the words "volume one" in maroon. The rightmost book is bound in red bookcloth and has a hand-embroidered ribcage on the lefthand side of the front cover and the righthand side of the back cover. The title, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world" is in the top right corner in black as well as the words "volume two" in white. Both volumes have stitching across the spine that joins the embroidery on the front and back covers so that the design stretches across the spine. /End ID]

It's finally time to share the books I made for the 2023 Rusty Quill Big Bang, hosted by @pilesofnonsense! This year, I was paired with the wonderful @phynoma, who wrote a post-circus AU entitled the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world where Jon is marked by an entity known as the Consuming that feeds off hunger and desire and focuses, in Jon's case, around sexual hunger and desire. It's a truly spectacular fic with excellent worldbuilding, spot-on characterization, and a wide variety of sexual encounters of all flavors, and I highly recommend it!

As this fic is written in transcript format, I wanted to go with an open-spine binding style that would have the advantage of both lying extremely flat when opened and giving the fic a more screenplay-like appearance. Also as a consequence of the transcript format, the final page count ended up being large enough that I split the fic into two volumes, the first of which covers season three and the second of which covers seasons four and five.

[ID: Two pictures of the same hand-bound books, the first of which shows volume one and the second of which shows volume two. Both books are fully open to display their front and back covers touching. We can see that the embroidered design, half of which is on the front cover and half of which is on the back, forms a complete picture when the book is fully open. /End ID]

Each volume has hand-embroidered front and back covers, with titles done in black, white, and maroon gel pen. The covers were designed so that when the book is fully open, the front and back cover designs come together to form one single cohesive image. Additionally, when the book is closed, the spine stitching was done so that the design stretches across the spine, thus making the full design complete whether the book is fully open or fully closed. I'm really proud of how these covers turned out, and even though the embroidery took much longer than I anticipated it taking, it's definitely something I would do again!

More description and pictures of the interior of the books are below the cut:

I went with a visually simple yet technically complex design for the typeset of this fic. Microsoft Word's styles were very much my friend, as well as its advanced find-and-replace feature, to automate a lot of the formatting for this fic. The most complex bits were the group chat excerpts and making sure all the profile pictures were positioned correctly, as well as the email chain excerpts in volume one. The text messages were done separately in an HTML workspace and then included via screenshots, and because I had an HTML/CSS text message code already sitting around from a previous project, those were relatively simple to format!

[ID: Eight pictures of the interior of the hand-bound books from previous photos. The first picture shows the title page of volume one, which has the title and author name in black and "volume one" in red, as well as a picture of a ginko tree. The second picture shows the title page of volume two, which has the title and author name in black and "volume two" in red, as well as a picture of a cherry blossom tree. The third picture shows the colophon and table of contents for volume two, highlighting the binder logos--a bluejay and a bookpress--and the faux-label table of contents title. The fourth picture shows the chapter header page for the chapter "voyeurism" in volume one, featuring brackets around the notes, content warnings, and pairings for the chapter as well as a quote from the confessions of augustine, which is separated from the warnings with an open eye graphic. The fifth picture shows the beginning of the chapter "hunger in the garden" in volume two, displaying the transcript formatting of the text as well as the faux-label chapter name on the top left. The sixth picture shows text messages in volume two, which are formatted the same as text messages on an iOS system with blue and gray bubbles and a name header that says "Jonathan Sims." The seventh picture shows some chapter text as well as a faux-office memo, done in a sans serif font, written from Elias Bouchard to the Archives team. The eighth picture shows on the left page faux emails, done in an iOS style with profile pictures for each email, and on the right page a faux-group message with profile pictures for each member and a header that labels the groupchat as the Snarkivists. /End ID]

The fonts used for this typeset were chosen based on those used for the unofficial Magnus Archives transcripts--DejaVu Sans Mono for the chapter intro pages and Libre Baskerville for the body text. I'm not 100% sure that those are the actual fonts used for the unofficial transcripts, but based on the reverse font search I did, those seem to be a close match for it.

This was a big project for me, and I'm so happy to finally see it to completion! Once again, a big thanks to Phynoma for being such a wonderful partner to work with--I'm excited to send you these books so you can see them in person 💜

[areyouokaypanda]

Another year, another Rusty Quill Big Bang, hosted by @pilesofnonsense ! This is the first of two pieces I did for Zai's All There Is And Can Be.

[izzys-trying]

Oh lawd these boys in situations

My 1st year doing the Rusty Quill Big Bang run by @pilesofnonsense !! This is my first piece (Second here) for the absolute riot (and subsequent unexpected heart wrenching) fic, written by SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse on ao3, here!!! I recommend giving it a look!! Absolutely fantastic!!

🌙If you’d like to support me at all here’s my ko-fi !!🌙

[phenomenice]

Haven't done much fanart this year, but I WAS able to do RQBB again! And I got to draw so much Grizzop and gobbos for @emwoman25's wonderful "Weapons Drawn". I'll reblog with the link to the fic in a moment! And you HAVE to read it to find out why Hamid is a baby.

This is part of @pilesofnonsense 2023 Rusty Quill Big Bang and as always it's been an absolutely joy participating.

Image IDs under the cut!

Image 1: A black and white watercolour and ink image of Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam, a goblin. He has large eyes and ears and is wearing a coat. He also wears a tactical-style baby carrier, in which he carries halfling Hamid Saleh Haroun al Tahan, who is a baby. Hamid has curly dark hair, chubby cheeks, and is chewing on the wing of a stuffed dragon.

Image 2: A colour watercolour and ink image of a family picnic. From left to right we see Kriz, Plik, Izzo, Grizzop, Hamid, Vesseek, Esk, Frax and Grat. All are goblins except Hamid, who is a baby halfling. Esk is also a baby. Hamid is wearing green pyjamas, Esk is wearing purple pyjamas. The younger goblins are all clad in various colours and styles. Izzo wears a yellow dress, Grat wears a brown tunic and olive hose. She carries a plate of fruit to the red picnic blanket everyone is sitting on. The babies are sitting on Hamid's purple cloak, which also holds a plate of cinnamon buns. Hamid and Esk are playing with a red and blue ball; Hamid has his arms raised in the air. There is a tree and blue sky in the background, along with a low stone wall and some shrubs. There is grass on the ground.

Image 3: A black and white watercolour and ink image of a side-hug between Hamid Saleh Haroun al Tahan and Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam. Hamid, on the left, is an adult halfling with pointy ears and dark curly hair. He wears an immaculate suit. Grizzop, on the right, has his arm around Hamid's shoulder and wears his breastplate, a turtleneck, a coat, and spaulders on his shoulders. He is a goblin with large ears and rings in his ears. His face is reminiscent of a sphinx cat.

[pilesofnonsense]

Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023

[Picture of a black banner with the Rusty Quill show logos and a text in white and red that reads Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023]

The Rusty Quill Big Bang is back to challenge you (yes, you!) to put your creative talents to the test. If you’ve been waiting for the chance to take on an ambitious project or collaborate with other folks in the fandom, now’s the time!

Writer sign-ups open on Monday, May 8th, with artist sign-ups to come in July. Here is the full schedule for this year:

Writer Sign-ups: May 8th - 14th

Check-in 1: June 11th

Full First Draft & Summary Due: July 9th

Artist Sign-ups: July 17th - 23rd

Check-in 2 & Art Draft Deadline: August 20th

Final Fic & Art Due: August 27th

Posting: August 31st - September 15th

We will post a link to the sign-up form along with a list of rules and requirements on the appropriate day, but if you’re interested in participating, you can have a look at the full Challenge Guidelines and other information on our blog right now!

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

This Dark Thing That Sleeps In Me - a Magnus Archives AU for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023

This is a DARK AU; it is not a kid-fic, though Jon is young. Bittersweet ending ahead.

Spoilers for the whole show, though this is very much an alternate universe.

In a world where the End won and Jonah Magnus is its Heart, the cycle of death and rebirth is a given: no one lives past thirty, the Other Fears scramble for scraps, and any infant without an Alignment—called Uncertain—has until the age of ten to be claimed, or they are sacrificed.

Jon, an Uncertain child, knows things he shouldn’t, has memories he shouldn’t, and also has a purpose: apparently, he’s been called to do what no Aligned person can do and stop Jonah.

Sometimes, there is no happy ending, only the right one. Jonah broke the promises he made to take over the world, and Jon is here to make it right.

“I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; all day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart?” ― Sylvia Plath

AO3

Incredible fanart by @iiiumihottie!

CHAPTER INDEX

@pilesofnonsense

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

PLAYLIST:

[pikachic]

My piece(s) for the 2023 Rusty Quill Big Bang hosted by @pilesofnonsense!

It's a short comic of a scene from Tea time for the lonely mind by @gothic-narrator-voice!

This was my first Big Bang, and I had so much fun working on it! Comic layout go brrr :D

Thanks to gothic narrator for working with me (and for writing a fic that simultaneously clocked me over the head with a chair and filled said head with comic ideas), I couldn't have done this without them!

[bittercape]

This year's RQBB art was for enderfoxx' fic roots, and it's been a joy and a pleasure to work with her

@pilesofnonsense thank you for organising the event!

[guinevere01]

"From the back, they could have been twins: both of them skinny and angular, with the same unimpressive height, dark hair, and pointed ears that suggested elven ancestry. But then they turned toward the tables, and Tim got his first good look at Jonathan Sims and Gerard Keay."

ID: two pixel art pieces portraying a scene in the cafetaria of the Magnus Insitute, based on All of Existence, All at Once [AO3 link] by @pitviperofdoom - a Stolen Century (The Adventure Zone: Balance) AU of The Magnus Archives. The art is drawn from the perspective of Tim and Sasha (not shown) sitting at one of the tables and looking over the rest of the cafetaria where two detailed figures walk as well as multiple silhouettes of other people. The two figures are Jon and Gerry - in the first they have their backs to the viewer, in the second they are facing the viewer.

Jon is a brown skinned man with pointed ears and long black hair, wearing a pinstripe waistcoat with a dark green tie over a white button up, as well as pressed tan slacks and brown oxford shoes. He's standing with his arms crossed and holds a stern, disdained stare from behind oval golden glasses, under arched eyebrows.

Gerry is a pale white man with pointed ears and long black hair thrown over one shoulder. He has multiple line tattoos of eyes - small ones on his wrists and finger joints, and a big one on his throat. He wears black lipstick and eyeliner, as well as a lip and eyebrow piercing.

Gerry is wearing a long, sleeveless, dark grey coat with metal studs on the lapels and bottom edge as well as spikes on the shoulders, over a black long-sleeved shirt. He also wears ripped, grey cargo trousers and black platform boots. On the front of the coat a skull pin is visible, on the back there's art of a large, stark white middle finger being held up, with above and below it bloody red text that's partially hidden, in full it reads "Rebel Misfit". Thin metal chains hang front to back on one side of the coat. On the back of Gerry's trousers a few bright and colourful paint stains can be seen at the bottom edge.

The cafetaria has dark green walls, one of which is decorated with a large painting of Elias Bouchard - an older white man in a suit with grey hair and piercing grey eyes. The tables are white and circular, the chairs are red, blue and grey. There's a tall plant in the corner. On the table at the centre front lies a stack of books in different colours and sizes. The one visible title reads: Foundations. End ID

This is my art piece for the Rusty Quill Big Bang this year! Thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting the big bang and @pitviperofdoom for writing this awesome crossover, and of course thanks to my fellow artist for this fic @paintbrushinacoffeecup and their amazing art!

[phynoma]

I'm gonna be honest, I'm probably going to post about this fic a lot because I spent 4 months putting it together and NOT ABLE TO SCREECH ABOUT IT

SO

You know how Jonny Sims and Alex Newell made the (very solid) decision to not include any explicit kissing sounds/particular types of trauma?

Have you ever thought "what if they did, tho?" Hang on that's not a good job explaining wait

SO

do you like angst? do you like monster!Jon? do you ever think "wow Jon went 0-60 on Martin by season 4, wish we had more build-up or a blatantly over-the-top excuse"

Read my pretentiously titled fic! It has multi-shipping! It has humor! It has surprising amounts of blood body horror! It has sex! It has romance! It has again, surprising amounts of teeth!

It has received rave reviews like "I read this in their voices!" And "oh my GOD" and "😳"

It's fully posted and complete, with gorgeous binding art!

[evieebun125]

I had the pleasure of working with @mageical-ish for the Rusty Quill Big Bang hosted by @pilesofnonsense

I'm so fortunate to got to work on such an incredible fic with such a kind writer <3

Please check out their lovely fic Flights of Fancy! <3

[ID: A digital drawing Hamid Saleh Haroun Al-Tahan and Guivres from Rusty Quill Gaming. Hamid has lured Guivres into the ocean and is attempting to outrun the splash. Hamid is a Egyptian Halfling with a creme blouse and green vest, adorned with a cape of heritage and jewelry, he has brass scales and wings. Guivres is a gold dragon with blue veins speckling her scales. /End ID]

[pitviperofdoom]

Summary:

Over the course of one year, four magical researchers slowly uncover the secrets of the Institute they work for, and embark on a quest to destroy a series of powerful cursed tomes. Over the course of one hundred years, seven unlikely companions escape the destruction of their world and flee across the multiverse from the cosmic entity of ever-hungering fear that they unwittingly released by destroying a series of powerful cursed tomes. Whoops.

The first part of my TMA Big Bang fic is up! Big thank you to the mods, and to my artist partners @paintbrushinacoffeecup and @guinevere01.

[areyouokaypanda]

Another piece for this year's Rusty Quill Big Bang, hosted by @pilesofnonsense ! This is the second of two for Zai's All There Is And Can Be.

[pilesofnonsense]

RQBB 2023 Artist Sign-Ups Open

[ID: Picture of a black banner with the Rusty Quill show logos and a text in white and red that reads Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023]

Please read through the information carefully to understand what will be expected of you as a participant.

The sign-up link is at the end of the post under the spoiler cut!

Schedule for 2023 (all deadlines at 23:00 BST / 5pm CDT):

Artist Sign-ups: July 17th - 23rd

Check-in 2 & Art Draft Deadline: August 20th

Final Fic & Art Due: August 27th

Posting: September 3rd - September 17th

Confirmation e-mails for sign-ups will be sent out after sign-ups close; if you have not received a confirmation by July 26th, please contact us at pilesofnonsense@gmail.com. We ask that you check your email (including the spam folder!) and reply so we can confirm that your registered email address is correct and you still intend to participate.

If you wish to only sign-up as a pinch hitter for the event please e-mail us under pilesofnonsense@gmail.com and let us know the fandoms and ratings you’d be comfortable to pinch hit for and what your Do Not Wants are (if you would be comfortable with pinch hitting M and E rated fics, you confirm that you are over 18).

Participation Requirements:

You must choose whether to join the Big Bang as an artist or writer. You may not do both.

Artists will need somewhere to host their work, so that it can be embedded on AO3.

If you wish to create for M or E rated fics you must be aged over 18.

All participants must read and adhere to the Expected Conduct guidelines (see below).

Art Requirements: At least one fully finished piece of original artwork (traditional or digital colored/shaded drawing or painting, ficbinding, completed cross-stitch or knitting project, etc.) or full podfic. Compilations or arrangements of existing art, such as playlists or moodboards, should not be your primary piece for this challenge, though you are welcome to include them as a bonus (see below).

Please note, we do not accept AI-generated or AI-assisted works, either as main or extra pieces.

We hope that artists, like the writers, will take this opportunity to challenge themselves—whether by attempting an ambitious work in their primary medium, finding new means of creative expression, or sharing an extra tidbit inspired by their work on this project (e.g. sketches, a playlist, a comment about the fic and the process of creating for it, etc.).

If you have any questions about the suitability of your art, please contact the mods.

Art Draft Requirements: Your draft should show significant progress on your piece. For a digital drawing, for example, the minimum would be completed lineart, ready for coloring. For handcrafts, your project should be about halfway done.

As always, if you are unsure what qualifies when it comes to your medium or process, you can contact us!

Maximum Number of Fics per Artist: Initially, each artist will only be able to sign up for 1 fic (they may create as much art for this fic as they like).

Artists who would like to create for more than one fic can indicate this in their sign-up, and will be contacted during matching if this is necessary. You may also sign up as a pinch-hitter to be contacted in the event that another artist drops out.

Matching Process: The artist sign-up will include a list of the anonymised fic summaries. Each artist will select 3 fics which they would be interested in creating for, with additional preferences (favourite show/shows they do not follow, OTPs and NoTPs, Do Not Wants, etc.) indicated in the comment field. Mods will then match writers to artists, taking preferences into account as much as possible.

If fics are oversubscribed or if it is otherwise necessary for matching, they may be removed from the list of eligible fics before the end of artist sign-ups.

If you have an issue with your match, please let the mods know as soon as possible.

Do Not Wants: In this event, you will have an opportunity to Do Not Want (DNW) the types of content that you do not wish to work on. Similarly, if you’ve had conflicts with certain people in the past and do not want to risk matching to them, you can include this in your sign-up or draft submission, and we will avoid matching you with them (details of these will not be shared beyond the mod team).

The mods will always account for DNWs within reason; however, attempts to manipulate matches via DNWs or otherwise acting in bad faith will result in the rejection of your sign-up or draft. We are also not private detectives, and will thus not be fielding any requests such as “do not match me with anyone who has ever drawn/written XYZ.” Please keep that in mind when considering whether this event is right for you.

Discord: Writers, artists, and anyone else involved in the event are all welcome to join our Discord for RQ Big Bang chatter! Links will be included in participant confirmation emails; please do not share these links, as they are created to meet our participant numbers.

Expected Conduct:

By signing up for this event, you agree to do your best to meet the deadlines. If you might need a little more time, please email the mods to explain your situation before the deadline passes. Those who miss deadlines without contacting the mods beforehand may be dropped from the event without further contact.

In order to participate in this event, you must be willing to contact the mods directly in the event that you have a question, concern, or issue with your participation (as in the deadline example above). We are happy to help participants with anything that arises, but cannot accept “telephone”-style communiques on behalf of others.

Be in regular contact with your match—if you’re going to be offline for a significant length of time, let them know. Radio silence from your match in events of this kind can be very concerning. (If you are having trouble getting in touch with your match, please contact us!)

Please take care to credit your artist/writer in your own final post.

Our Discord server has its own list of rules, which are listed within the server. If you decide to join the server, we require you to read and abide by those rules.

Be kind and courteous towards your match and fellow participants. This naturally means that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are prohibited, but even where those are not at play, you are expected to treat others with respect.

We, like Rusty Quill, have an “all headcanons are valid” policy. Harassment or mockery of those with different interpretations will not be tolerated. This does not mean you cannot discuss how you see the characters with others or that your artist/writer should not take it into account at their discretion, but insistence that any one interpretation must be adhered to is not allowed.

If you have concerns that a work or participant may be in violation of the rules, please bring it to the mods directly. Harassment of other participants (including but not limited to callout posts, name-calling, baiting, etc.), either publicly or in the Piles of Nonsense discord server, over their identities, fanworks, or headcanons will result in an instant default.

A full overview of the Guidelines can be found on our Challenge Guidelines page. We also have an FAQ.

The artist sign-up form can be found here.

Addition - Please read If surveymonkey is been rejecting your sign-up and claiming you haven’t picked enough fics, please try again, avoiding any fic with a note saying it’s been temporarily removed from sign-up.Temporary fic removal is a normal part of our sign-up process, but unfortunately surveymonkey is not functioning as it usual - instead of hiding the fics, it’s showing them but refusing to let people choose them.

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to working with you!

[morning-softness]

[Image Description: Martin Blackwood and Jonathan Sims sit together on a couch. Martin’s hands rest in his lap. He gazes fondly down at Jon, who is leaning against his side. Jon is curled up under a blanket, with ear defenders on his ears, and his eyes are closed as if he is asleep. Rain pours down outside, visible through a window next to the couch. Martin is depicted as a tall, fat man with pale skin, freckles, blue eyes, and short, wavy, blond hair. He is wearing round, black-framed glasses, an orange and yellow jumper, and blue jeans. Jon is depicted as a short, thin man with medium brown skin and long, curly, greying dark hair. He is wearing rectangular, silver-framed glasses. End Description.]

Once again excited to be participating in the Rusty Quill Big Bang run by @pilesofnonsense ! This is my second piece (1st piece here) for the fic Fraying at the Seams written by starrynightsky03 on ao3.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

This Dark Thing That Sleeps In Me - a Magnus Archives AU, Chapter One

This is a DARK AU; it is not a kid-fic, though Jon is young. Bittersweet ending ahead.

Spoilers for the whole show, though this is very much an alternate universe.

In a world where the End won and Jonah Magnus is its Heart, the cycle of death and rebirth is a given: no one lives past thirty, the Other Fears scramble for scraps, and any infant without an Alignment—called Uncertain—has until the age of ten to be claimed, or they are sacrificed.

Jon, an Uncertain child, knows things he shouldn’t, has memories he shouldn’t, and also has a purpose: apparently, he’s been called to do what no Aligned person can do and stop Jonah.

Sometimes, there is no happy ending, only the right one. Jonah broke the promises he made to take over the world, and Jon is here to make it right.

“I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; all day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart?” ― Sylvia Plath

AO3

-------------

Jon’s birth was difficult.

The mother was young, even for the End’s world, and both nurses knew before it was done that she wouldn’t survive the process.

No one but the nurses were there; no family, no lover, no friends. No one seemed to care beyond those two, who were forced by time and tenure to clean up the mess. It was a sad story they’d seen before; in a world where life had little meaning, the death of a teenage girl didn’t matter.

The nurses were, however, startled by two things: one, the baby was born with a caul on his face. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare. Two, he had lines all over his hands.

It was as though his tiny hands had been slit in a hundred places and barely healed; uneven, in all directions, long and short lines covered them; but there was no blood, and he evinced no pain. In fact, he barely fussed, so the nurses focused on other things, putting the weirdness aside with the rest of the effluvia and moving right along.

They soothed the mother. They cleaned the baby. They tested him for Alignment.

The result was Uncertain.

Which happened, but it was so rare; and so unfortunate. “Oh, he’s such a dear little thing,” said the first nurse, holding the small, brown baby.

The second nurse didn’t care. “Well, he’ll be dear to the End, then, unless somebody claims him.”

It could happen, thought the first nurse. He had until the age of ten to develop an Alignment with one of the Others, avoiding the otherwise unavoidable sacrifice of this child to the End. After all, she’d been Uncertain until the Flesh claimed her.

Of course, everyone went to the End by thirty, anyway, but that wasn’t the point. The first nurse, who was all of seventeen and felt like she had her whole life ahead of her, verbalized this.

The second nurse, who was twenty-nine and set to die next year, didn’t bother to answer because, when she’d turned back around, the mother was already dead.

Was this auspicious? It could be viewed as a sacrifice to the End, though unplanned. Maybe this orphaned child would be all right. It could be a good omen.

The first nurse considered it so.

The second was too tired to care.

#

Jon’s childhood was difficult.

Nobody knew what to do with him. He didn’t act like a normal child; he didn’t play games like his fellow Uncertain orphans did. And, until he finally learned better, he never shut up.

It was questions. Always questions. Not knowing buzzed like an angry bug under his skin, and he could only avoid questions for so long.

Jon suspected it had something to do with his past life. He knew that made him weird. Nobody remembered their past lives. Everyone had them, of course; you were born, you lived until age thirty (or ten, if you remained Uncertain), were sacrificed to the End, and then reborn. That was normal.

But Jon got glimpses of things, memories in which he’d been a grown man—so vivid that he began to ask his past self things as though that man could answer. It felt good to talk to someone who liked questions, silly as it was, and he could pretend the things he just knew came from him.

Maybe he wasn’t silly after all. Sometimes, he got answers for his questions out of thin air. That was great. It felt like a present, when that happened, a personalized gift. He felt loved, for no reason he could explain. But it didn’t happen often, and he couldn’t control it. 

So. He asked questions, instead.

His peers were cruel in trying to make him stop. They’d hit him, but that sting didn’t last—the need to know did. They’d lock him in his closet, but while the dark was empty and smelled like mold, his questions were always sparkling and new. 

They threatened to throw him out of the attic windows (which were sealed, and so it was a stupid threat). They threatened to drown him in the tub (which was a little scary, but he half wanted to know what it would be like). They burned him during dinner, but the process of scarring fascinated him after. 

The scar just joined the lines on his hands, so it was hardly an issue. Those lines—uneven, angled, irregular—didn’t seem quite like scars, but they also never faded. Still, they were just his hands , and he was used to them. There were more interesting things to talk about. 

So many more things to ask about.

Jon could not understand why everyone hated questions. Questions seemed the most natural form of communication. How else did one know what to do? How else could one learn?

Even the three adults couldn’t get him to quit—not even when their anger made him sick (which, to be fair, was expected in a house run by Corruption-Aligned adults). The process of being feverish until he coughed up blood was horrible, but it only left him wondering just why and how his lungs could create such a pink foam. What was that? How did that happen? He didn’t have anything foamy in his lungs normally, did he?

Besides, it’s not like anyone would kill him. It was too soon, and death taken without the End’s permission was… a bad idea. The Fingers would come for you, so everybody said. 

Finally, they figured out the way to stop the questions was to give him something to read.

He’d picked reading up pretty quickly. All Uncertain children had to be taught to do it, of course. The hope was (a) they would be of some use when an Other Fear claimed them, and (b) knowledge of an Other would engender a response—sudden reaction to fear of being hunted, or the desire to hunt, and boom! An Uncertain child could now be claimed, and someone responsible for the newly-Aligned orphan would come to take them away.

Jon loved reading. He sometimes forgot how small he was while doing it, as though his past self had spent a lot of time in books, too, and that was weirdly comforting. Like he wasn’t alone, like he and his past self were companions, somehow, reading and answering questions together. 

By the time Jon was six, half his fellow Uncertain orphans had found homes, claimed by Lonely, or Web, or Desolation. 

Jon remained Uncertain.

By the time he was seven, all but three other children had gone from Uncertain to Aligned—clearly demonstrating aptitude for the Dark, or the Buried, or the Slaughter. 

Jon remained Uncertain.

By the time he was eight years old, he was the only one left. It was just him and the three miserable Corruption-Aligned adults rattling around this sealed house, all of whom wanted to be anywhere but in each other’s presence.

All three of the adults were approaching their thirtieth year, and no one was happy; Jane was twenty-six, Amherst was twenty-eight, and Carnegie was twenty-nine.

Jon was only vaguely aware of their growing bitterness and panic. He read, and stayed out of the adults’ way, and talked to his past adult self, and did his best to put answers together from nothing. He liked the lines on his hands, and sometimes would sit there and feel them, sliding his thumb over each; they felt almost like very shallow slits to him, like little lips.

At least nobody hit him anymore. 

It wasn’t too bad. Even though, by nine, he fully understood he was going to die.

#

He wasn’t afraid of death. He had seen plenty of it, of course. In a world run by the End, it was inevitable. Unpredictable purple storms felled people in the streets. Animals would suddenly stop rooting in garbage and fall over dead. The empty people (Fingers, everyone called them) occasionally marched into the alley that was his world outside the attic windows, storming into buildings to pull out sacrifices: adults who sometimes fought back, and sometimes went with tears and trembling. 

He wasn’t sure what happened to them after they were taken out of the alley, but he knew they were given to the End.

He wanted to know. 

He also wanted to know why they always seemed so upset. They’d just be reborn. What was the big deal?

He looked forward to his tenth birthday. That was when those empty people would come for him. Would he get to know anything after he died? He didn’t know. Would he remember his child-self, the way he remembered his grown-self? He didn’t know that, either. None of the books he read told him what happened after death, or what it was like to be reborn. He wondered if he’d remember that part. He didn’t remember being born the first time.

What it was like to die was the biggest question of all—and the thought of finding out gave him a weird little thrill. He did not fear it.

Jon read. He pored over books and dared ask for more (Jane always ordered him more, and he was grateful for it).

Books came in with the weekly distribution of food and money, and since nobody else was reading in this place, he claimed them all.

He’d made quite a stash in the attic.

He wondered who would read them after he was gone. This was the first bit of sorrow he’d felt about all of this; books were so wonderful. Would they be left alone up here, forgotten, until mold got them and ruined their pages?

“What happened to all your books?” he asked himself, his past self, speaking to the rafters as he lay on his back. “I wonder if any of these were yours.” This time, there was no answer.

The daily adult arguments got louder. Jon began to sleep in the attic, surrounded by piles of precious print. Nobody cared.

chapter two