In Other Lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

“You little brat,” the captain breathed, raising his fist, and Elliot lifted his chin. Luke drew his sword. The sharp edge glittered in the light of the burning papers, pointed across the desk at the captain. “Don’t touch him.” Elliot took a deep shaky breath, relieved not to be hit and annoyed at how relieved he was. “You pack of stupid, traitorous children—” Captain Whiteleaf began, and then he cut himself off and just glared at them, as if he was memorizing their faces and thinking of punishments to visit upon them. Elliot knew what he saw. Serene at the tent with moonlight in her dark hair and her bow steady in her hands, Luke and his sword glinting in the candlelight, and Elliot. Elliot held firm. The treaties were ashes in his hands by now.

She would speak, and whatever she said was brilliant and startling. She was like that, a constant bright surprise. She was always talking, always laughing, always dancing, and she was never what I expected. I was even surprised when she left.” He looked over at Elliot, who was sitting with his hands clenched tight around his knees. “You’re not like her,” he added. “You’re like me. Nobody will ever love you enough to stay.”

He supposed it didn’t matter if someone left because you weren’t good enough or left because you actually drove them away. The result was the same.

Even if you found yourself in a magical story, there were no guarantees that you were the hero, or that you would get the things you dreamed of. Elliot knew no way, being who he was, to deserve that.

“Don’t be rude to me when you’re rescuing me, loser,” Elliot told him. “That’s terrible manners. You’re the worst.”

“It’s okay that it’s—bright,” said Luke. “It means I can find you, when you’re in trouble.” “I don’t know why you would suggest the possibility of me being in trouble,” said Elliot. “Because I am a retiring and bookish individual, and I don’t like being in trouble, in danger, or in proximity to weapons. You will never find me in trouble. You will find me in the library. If you can remember where that is.”

Elliot opened his mouth to argue. He knew that Luke and Serene were exceptional. He had been told that and had seen that over and over again. But shouldn’t the adults, if they loved them, if they were responsible for them and cared for them more than for anything else, the way adults were supposed to . . . shouldn’t they try to stop them saving the day, even if they could do it? Unless Elliot’s father was only the most honest of the adults, and all adults were willing to betray children if offered an incentive.

“It is much too dangerous,” Elliot said. “It would be really dumb to go out there.” He paused. “Well, even I can’t be smart all the time.”

And he did not want to be loved as a second choice, as a surrender. He had spent his whole life not being loved at all, and he had thought being loved enough would satisfy him. It would not. He did not want to be loved enough. He wanted to be loved overwhelmingly. He did not wish it had been him who caught Myra, instead of Peter. He did not want to be Serene’s fallback, even though it was Serene. He had never been chosen, so he had never had a chance to know this about himself before now: he wanted to be chosen first.

She didn’t have to tell him, because he could tell. That was what it meant, when people came to find you, when they cared enough to sacrifice for you, when they supported you, when they came back. He could tell when someone cared. And he could tell when someone didn’t.

When you cared too much about one person, other people seemed to matter less, and sometimes you treated them as if they did not matter at all.