They started walking again once Leo finally stopped testing his newly healed ankle every three steps.
For the first few minutes he seemed physically incapable of leaving it alone. He would walk normally for a little while, glance down, roll the ankle inside his shoe, then deliberately step harder on that foot like he expected the pain to suddenly remember it was supposed to exist. The golden fleece hoodie shimmered faintly whenever one of the blue-white pieces of mana drifting through the street landed against it, the curls of wool catching the light for a second before it disappeared.
Melody caught him bouncing on the foot again and shook her head. “Dude, you’re going to hurt it again just trying to prove it isn’t hurt.”
“I’m not trying to hurt it, I’m checking it.” Leo bounced once more before apparently deciding that was enough. “Because it was like... really bad. I mean, maybe not broken bad, I don’t know what a broken ankle looks like, but it was getting huge and I couldn’t even stand on it, and then this thing basically cooked me for ten seconds and now it’s just fine. It’s so freaking cool.”
“You’re wearing a magical sheep hoodie.”
“I know, but that’s also cool.”
Melody couldn’t argue with that.
Leo rubbed both hands down the golden sleeves while they walked, still inspecting the fleece like he expected to discover another ability hidden somewhere inside it. “Do you think it only heals me when I’m actually hurt? Because if it just heals all the time, I don’t know what that would mean. Like, am I technically healing right now? Maybe it’s fixing little stuff I don’t even know about, like cuts or bruises or... I don’t know, cavities? Well, maybe not. The healing hurt a lot earlier.”
Melody looked over at him. “I don’t think your magical sweatshirt is doing dental work.”
“You don’t know that.”
“That is unfortunately becoming true for everything nowadays.”
“I’m just saying, because what if I lose a tooth? Not like a baby tooth, obviously, I’m thirteen. But if somebody punched one out, would it grow back? Wolverine grows stuff back.”
“Wolverine also has a metal skeleton.”
“Yeah, but the healing came first, I think. Actually, wait, no, because he had the healing when they put the metal in him, so yeah, it came first. But that’s not the point.”
“I have no idea what your point was.”
Leo thought about that for a second. “I kind of forgot.”
Melody laughed.
That seemed to encourage him rather than embarrass him, because he kept going.
“And your knife is weird too.”
Melody glanced toward the fang dagger at her hip. “That was a transition.”
“I was thinking about the healing thing and then I remembered the knife, because when I had it before it didn’t do anything, right? And I know we were about to get eaten by a million ants, so maybe I just screwed it up, but I was doing exactly what you said. I pointed it at the building and I was thinking like, go, go, go, obviously not literally saying it because that would be stupid, but nothing happened. Then you grab it and suddenly it’s all red and there are wings and we go flying.”
He paused long enough to step around a chunk of broken concrete in the road, then immediately resumed.
“Do you think it knows it’s you?”
Melody looked at him. “The dagger?”
“Yeah. Like, not knows-knows, because then that gets creepy and now you have a sentient knife, but maybe it can tell your mana or something. Like those fingerprint locks where it’s not alive, it just knows that’s your finger. Except instead of a fingerprint it’s, I don’t know, your magic fingerprint.”
Melody reached down and rested her fingers against the wrapped handle while she considered that. The familiar warmth was there beneath the cloth, faint but noticeable.
“Magic fingerprint.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I actually kind of do.”
Leo nodded quickly, happy she’d followed him. “Because you got it from the cat, right? Or tiger or whatever we’re calling that thing.”
“Armored flying murder cat.”
“Yeah, that. And then you absorbed it and the dagger showed up, so maybe it’s like yours because it came out of your mana. But then the snake sword did the same thing, so do you just get weapons? Because I got a hoodie, which seems unfair until you remember mine heals me and yours mostly help you get into situations where you need healing.”
Melody stared at him.
Leo grinned. “I’m just saying.”
“You ever get told you talk a lot?”
Leo shrugged. “I mean... yeah, by my family. And my friends sometimes. I don’t usually talk this much to people I just met, though. Especially girls. I’m kinda awkward with girls.”
Melody looked over at him.
“But, like, girls my age,” he added quickly. “You’re old.”
“I’m twenty-two.”
“Yeah. Old.”
Melody stared at him.
Leo grinned. “Also we almost got eaten by a snake and then ants together, so I think being awkward would be kinda stupid now.”
That made Melody smile despite herself.
Leo reached over and poked the wrapped dagger lightly with one finger. “But seriously, what happens when you use the sword? Because I didn’t really see you do anything special with it. Then you basically shoved it at me and I didn’t feel anything from it. You think it’s just a normal sword?”
“I... um, I guess I didn’t really try to use it. Also, yeah, I did throw it at you. But it was kind of life and death. And then you go and throw it.”
“I landed badly!”
“You launched it halfway across the roof.”
“I twisted my ankle!”
“You were very dramatic about the whole thing. What would have happened if you just threw it off the roof?”
“It was an accident.”
Melody raised both hands. “Sure, okay.”
Leo went quiet for maybe five seconds.
Then, “Do you think I could use the sword?”
Melody looked over at him again. “You really want a sword now, don’t you?”
“No. I mean... yes, obviously, because swords are cool, but I’m asking because if your dagger didn’t work for me, would the sword not work either? Except the sword is still a sword, so even if the magic part didn’t work I could still hit something with it. Unless it gets heavier when somebody else holds it. Does it feel heavy to you?”
“Yes.”
“But like normal heavy or magic heavy?”
“Leo.”
“I’m asking!”
Melody laughed and shook her head. “I don’t know. It feels like a sword. A big sword. I also have never held a sword before yesterday, so maybe I’m the worst possible person to ask.”
“That’s crazy.”
“What?”
“That you’ve never held a sword.”
Melody stopped walking for half a second and stared at him.
Leo looked completely serious.
“How many swords do you think normal people hold?”
“I don’t know. You’re an adult.”
“That doesn’t mean I was born during medieval times.”
“My uncle had one.”
“Of course he did.”
“It was on his wall in his office. He let me throw fruit at him for him to cut in midair with it.”
“That doesn’t count!”
“I held it though.”
“Fine, you’re thirteen and you’ve held more swords than me. Happy now?”
Leo looked extremely pleased with himself. “Apparently.”
Melody started walking again. “I hate this conversation.”
“I’m winning.”
“There wasn’t a competition.”
“That’s what people say when they’re losing.”
She almost told him to shut up, then caught herself smiling.
It was strange how quickly Leo had changed around her. Not completely. There were still moments where he went quiet for no obvious reason and Melody knew exactly where his thoughts had gone. His family hadn’t stopped being dead because a magical hoodie fixed his ankle. But between those moments, more of him was coming out. He talked with his hands now. He wandered into explanations that started with one subject and somehow ended somewhere completely different. He corrected Melody about things that did not matter and seemed increasingly willing to annoy her simply because he had figured out she wasn’t going anywhere.
It felt painfully normal.
Leo was still talking.
“And maybe you don’t even have to kill the monster yourself, because the ants killed the sheep and I still got this.” He pinched the golden fleece between two fingers. “So maybe whoever touches it first gets whatever it drops, except that sounds way too videogame-y, and also you touched the cat after the missile killed it, so yeah, actually that kind of works. But the snake you killed yourself, so that doesn’t prove anything. Wait, did the cat actually die from the missile or did you technically absorb the rest of it while it was dying?”
Melody blinked. “I have absolutely no idea.”
“Because that matters.”
“Does it?”
“I don’t know, maybe!”
Melody laughed again.
Leo continued, completely undeterred. “I’m just trying to figure out the rules. There have to be rules, right? Everything has rules. Even magic usually has rules. Like in shows when the character says they have unlimited power and then five episodes later it’s actually unlimited power except they can only use it on Tuesdays during a full moon or they die.”
“That is extremely specific.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“And if we’re going to keep fighting these things, I would kind of like to know if touching one is going to give me another hoodie or turn my arm into a sword or something.”
Melody looked at him.
Leo immediately added, “Which would be cool at first, but probably really inconvenient.”
“Thank you for thinking that through.”
“Couldn’t play video games,” he muttered, and the realization seemed to disturb him more than the hypothetical sword arm itself.
“The world ended.” Melody gave him a questioning look.
“Games still exist.”
“Do they?”
Leo went quiet.
Melody immediately regretted saying it.
Then he shrugged. “Somebody has a generator.”
That was such a thirteen-year-old answer that Melody snorted.
Leo smiled and kept walking beside her, rubbing the sleeve of his ridiculous golden hoodie while he stared down the ruined street ahead.
Neither of them noticed the sound at first.
It blended too easily into the city, another distant rhythm beneath crackling fires, alarms, and occasional far-off gunshots. Leo was halfway through explaining why losing electricity did not technically mean video games were gone forever when Melody slowed.
“Wait.”
He took another step before noticing she had stopped. “What? I’m right, though, because handhelds have batteries and if somebody has solar panels then technically you could still charge a Switch, and I know that is not important right now, but I’m just saying civilization would have to get a lot worse before video games completely disappeared.”
“Leo.”
Something in her voice finally got through.
He stopped talking.
Melody tilted her head and listened.
There it was again.
A deep, repeating impact rolling between the buildings ahead. It wasn’t random like collapsing debris, and it didn’t have the uneven rhythm of people running through the streets.
It was too steady.
Leo listened beside her, his expression slowly changing as the sound became clearer.
Hundreds of footsteps.
Maybe more.
All hitting the pavement together.
Leo leaned closer without taking his eyes off the intersection ahead. “Okay... that sounds like a lot of monsters.”
Melody stared down the street. The impacts were getting louder now, still keeping that same unnervingly perfect rhythm.
“Yeah.” She looked around quickly before pointing toward an old store across the street that looked like it had been abandoned before any of this even happened. “Come on. Let’s hide in there.”