I take a step, then another. Jack hoots and backs away, looking like one of those ridiculous parents in those diaper commercials, watching their kids toddle for the first time.
It’s breezier at the platform. I take a step up and wobble even when my feet are rooted to the stone.
“It’s all in your head,” Jack says. “Just a little closer to the railing.”
I can do this.
I raise a shaky hand and grab the railing.
“Just a peek,” Jack says.
I lower my head, but before I can see anything, I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m gripping the railing so hard I swear I might break it.
Jack says, “Look down.” But when I throw my eyes open, I look straight ahead.
Jack whoops and I jerk my head down to see him jumping onto the railing. He throws his arms above his head. His eyes are hard and wild and it’s enough to send me stumbling back off the platform.
Unlike Jack, I’m not interested in plunging to my death. Jack doesn’t understand because Jack isn’t a safe boy.
Another part of me doesn’t want to always be safe, either. If my people are going to be great again, we can’t hide behind safe anymore. My body’s buzzing and my fingers twitch and my eyes burn. We deserve so much more. But I’m not brave enough to lead my people anywhere.
I take a step back. Another. Another.
Jack jogs over. “Next time, then.” He looks at me with steely eyes gone soft. “Next time you’ll look down. There’s plenty to see. You’ll love it, I promise.”
I nod, defeated and trying not to look it. “It’s just . . . kind of cold, that’s all.”
“Definitely. I was getting cold, too,” Jack says. “Fireplace? You could work on your chair.” He rubs his arms vigorously, even though we both know it’s pretty warm up here, the magicked atmosphere and all.
He’s a kind liar.
We head back to the castle, and all I can think about is how badly I want to be like Jack, how badly I want an all-cares-to-the-wind risk-taker inside of me, too.
But there isn’t.
“You’re already here. You’ve done the hard part.” Beside me, Jack laughs. “All you have to do now is open your eyes.”
It’s the first time Jack has been back in a month, and the first thing he did when he got here was ask me to take him back to Lookout South. I only gave in because he wouldn’t shut up about it.
“There’s a special desert I’d like to visit,” Jack says breezily. “Rocks are said to slide across the baked earth on their own.”
I’ve got a tight grip around the railing and my eyes are shut, just like they’ve been the entire five minutes we’ve been standing here. It was easier making it out to the platform this second time, but now that I’m here, my body betrays me. My hands shake and my legs feel like they’re about to float off with the wind, and the only thing keeping me from keeling over is my royal pride.
“Are you familiar with the place?” Jack says.
It’s a lot windier than last time, and my palms are slippery. “What?” I say, still refusing to see anything but the backs of my eyelids.
“The desert. Mysterious forces . . . ?”
“Let’s talk about it back at the castle.” I’m embarrassed at how breathless I sound but too scared to sound any different.
“I’d love to see a rock pushing itself across the ground,” Jack says, as if he can’t tell I’m this close to breakdown mode. “I’m going to see it one day. It’s all in the mind, you know. Be clear about your desires and you’ll achieve them.”
“I can’t concentrate on anything you’re saying. Can we please—”
“Take a peek. Then we go back and we don’t come here again unless you suggest it.”
“Jack—”
“A peek. Otherwise I will haunt your dreams with my bucket list.”
The guy’s persistent enough to figure out a way to do just that. I want to kick and applaud him at the same time. How can so much bravery fit into such a tiny body? How beautiful the human world must be, to create creatures as fearless as Jack. And it used to be ours. I’m the future Empress of the freaking Northern Hemisphere. I should at least be able to see it beneath my feet and be unafraid.
I can be like Jack.
No. I grip the railing even tighter.
I can be more.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I crack open my eyelids.
Pinpricks of light shine against the dark curtain spread before me as far as I can see. And then I see past it, to everything I’ve only experienced on television: salt-spraying waves; rustling trees; red canyons; rolling knolls; sweltering jungles . . . The potential of it all is enough to make this cloud feel more claustrophobic than ever.
I can be more. My own voice sounds so much stronger in my mind than it ever has in real life, and for one second I really believe it. I can be—
A gust of wind rushes in, and my knees buckle, and just like that, my eyes are shut again.
But I don’t step back. I take a deep breath and dare one more glance at the world below. A second later I feel like I’m going to fall over and I know I’m done. “I’m ready to go, Jack.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
I back away, and when the firm stone beneath my feet turns to soft cloud, I remember the way I felt just moments ago and I promise myself this won’t be the last time.
We head back to the castle and Jack chuckles. “Your breakout moment,” he says, nudging my calf. “And you didn’t even need a tattoo.”
“Spend a night in an ice hotel.”
“Traverse the piranha-infested waters of the Amazon on a log raft. No paddle.”
“Ride the back of a blue whale.”
“Swim through space. Naked.”
“Jack, you can’t swim through space naked.”
“I don’t care. I want to do it anyway.”
Jack and I are standing at the cloudline, leaning over the railing of Lookout South to stare at the land far below, lights winking through the darkness like stars in the midnight sky. We’re rattling off a bunch of things we’ve never done but want to. I’ve gotten better at this game, at being specific as I stare down the world.
“Swim in the turquoise waters of Oahu,” I say.
“Not too ambitious,” Jack says. “That will be one you check off first.”
I hold up my hand and position it so that a cluster of lights fits in the space between my thumb and forefinger. “Maybe,” I murmur.
Sure, I could swim off the coast of Hawaii, but right under my feet are all those lights, all that life. There’s a swath of black over to the left, where the ocean stretches into the horizon and a lonely light from some yacht reaches out. We’re like the ocean, us giants—always here, still a mystery. Humans have forgotten they don’t know everything.
The wind lifts my long hair off my shoulders and I close my eyes, and for a second, I imagine this is what it must be like to ride a beanstalk as it shrinks back down to earth . . .
“Gold coin for your thoughts?” Jack says.