The water is pure black and colder than emptiness itself. But it’s not black as it is usually seen, but as it is understood. The lack of light, but the sum of all mixed colors. It carries the world within it, and everything that has ever happened can be seen. I can’t take it all in, but I don’t need to. There is an intent behind it. A name. A Mirage. There is something she wants me to see. A thousand things I need to know and only an instant to show them to me.

  And that instant, we are ejected from the strange, nothing water together. We land in a clearing like lumps of lead, and both of us immediately start coughing. Thousands of images remain burned into my eyes. We can’t have been inside for more than a few seconds, but it feels as if years have passed. Memories. Too many memories. Mine, and Mirage’s, and Sara’s. The spikes are gone now. The void energy has been washed away. My legs still feel too weak to use, and I only manage to climb to my knees. As Riley climbs to her feet and finishes coughing the black water up, I remain frozen, staring at the ground with dead eyes.

  Even as she recovers, I can’t. I’ve finished coughing, but my stomach appears to have a few things to say about everything I’ve just learned, and I find myself retching. Bile, bread, and pear turn the dirt to mud in front of me as my mind spins. The half-digested hell-fruit coming into focus first only encourages a repeat performance. I clutch my still heart, then look up to Riley.

  “Did you . . . see it too?” My question is answered by her wide-eyed stare. Her eyes are fixed on my chest, and not in the normal way. She is watching my hand over my heart, like she wants to wrap her mind directly around my heart. She saw everything I did. Everything about Mirage and Manara. Everything about the Original, and about the Radiant Woods. Everything about Sara and me. My hand tremors as my fingers press into the skin over my heart. I want to tear my way to it and force it to beat. But that won’t work. That won’t help anything.

  I’m dead.

  It’s an oppressive reality, and one I have always understood on some level. I accepted my death as I was bleeding and falling from that skyscraper. I acknowledged I had died of pneumonia when I was only seven years old. I have felt the grip of death over, and over, and over. But it always felt like I had escaped it somehow.

  But the moment we fell into that water. That sudden, all-consuming cold, like an ice bath. I knew. I saw everything, and so did Riley. I don’t feel like I’m dead. No exactly. I have been growing. Aging. Yeah, I have some perhaps nonstandard physical developments as well, but I always attributed that to my unique magic circle. It was after that circle that my heart first stopped beating, after all. Or, that’s what I had thought, but . . . they hadn’t called a doctor after I came back. They decided to accept the Collector’s miracle. And a heartbeat . . . you notice sometimes when it’s there, sure. But it’s like the tip of your nose. You filter it out. Even after the magic, I didn’t notice until I ended up in a clinic. I just assumed it was a recent loss. But it must have been missing this entire time. From the moment I woke up in Potestia.

  I have been dead since I was seven, and I never came back. Part of me wants to believe this is more like life support. My body isn’t working right, but I am being kept alive by a tether. A plug which has yet to be pulled. But I know it’s not. I can feel it, now that I know. Like a heartbeat. Like the tip of my nose. Like restless hands during a speech, or just the act of breathing. My death is a reality I could filter out of my perception so long as my attention hadn't been drawn to it. But now that it has, I can feel it in every cell of my body. I am a corpse, moving and fighting when my time is long over.

  It’s no wonder Sara couldn’t change my body for me. Every body has a limit to how much Nexus magic can be used on it. And mine? Mine only moves and breathes because Sara pours all of herself into letting me play at being alive, all day, every day, for just one more day.

  Life support is a reality. It plays by the rules, and it stops when it can do no more. Me? I exist in defiance of reality. How very on brand. Something about that thought draws a small laugh out of me. A maddened chuckle, earned by an inside joke I finally understand. I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know how to feel, even. Strictly speaking, nothing has changed. I’m exactly who I have been for years. But it feels like everything has lost its color. Maybe that’s just a mental quirk. But . . . I don’t think so. The truth is, my life is not real. And like the violations of the sages, it will eventually heal. That’s why Mirage showed me. Because I needed to know. For the conversation, if you can call it that, that we need to have. She wanted me to know exactly what kind of deal she wanted to make, and why. I continue to chuckle.

  Riley looks at me like I’m insane as I finally climb to my feet. “You’re out of your mind,” she says. I spit, clearing the lingering taste of bile from my mouth.

  “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” I respond, taking a deep breath through my nose and scanning the world around us. The void energy is missing, and the trees create a near-perfect circle around us for an area of about ten yards. An empty oasis of safety. So Mirage can communicate with me directly. I can feel the safety. An image, like a great wall of energy, flashes through my head as I watch the treeline. She is strong, here. She can share more than emotion, so long as I am here.

  “What? Are you serious?” Riley asks. I rethink.

  “No, you are right. Plenty of dead people you should speak ill of, my mistake,” I say.

  She pauses. At the same time, Mirage sends me a feeling of . . . pity. “Are you always like this?” Riley asks. “I mean, I get it. Admire it, even. If I could always tell your little jokes and laugh in the face of terror . . . maybe my own life would have been easier. But . . . you can give it a rest, sometimes, you know? You weren’t the only one reminded of something you lost. I may not have it back yet, but I have the memory now. Of grief. I know you still feel it every day. And, for those of us in the Republic, Lillith, that’s a privilege. Use it. After what you just learned . . . shit. Just let yourself grieve.”

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  I can’t.

  “I haven’t lost my grief. I still feel my grief,” I reply.

  “That’s not what I said,” she snaps at me. I shake my head.

  “We don’t have time for that right now. Those . . . people are still out there. The sages are still out there. They still want us dead, and Mirage brought us here for a reason. We can worry about how appropriate my reaction is later,” I dismiss.

  “Moron,” she whispers, but I ignore her. I don’t know exactly how to communicate with Mirage, but I know I need to. So I take a step forward and let Riley's familiar refrain fade into the background. Mirage responds.

  She appears, if only in our minds. A woman, unclothed and insubstantial. Her hair seems to go on forever, into the horizon and further. It falls around her from wherever it grows, like clouds carried by wind. Even her body shifts and moves like colored oil on water. And her eyes. Her eyes are canyons of loss, leaving well-traveled streams down her cheeks. She hurts. She has been hurting this entire time. She reaches one hand out and touches my ear. As soon as she does, I hear it. Her screaming. Exactly as it sounded when she first fought her son, in the vision from the water. It never stopped. The pain never stopped, and neither did the sound it wrought.

  I am porcelain in freefall, ready to shatter until she withdraws her hand and the world goes silent again. Except I know it is still there. An expression she can’t stop. She is desperate to be heard, but too kind to force anyone to hear her. She doesn’t understand, even now. Her mind doesn’t work like ours. I can see it. She knows she loved a child, and he hurt her. She still doesn’t understand why. She exists to share her emotions, but the one she is least able to bear hurts too much to be given away. She can only respond to emotion, and every desperate attempt to share this one hurts her as much as the pain itself.

  I see the image of dandelion seeds, blowing in the wind. Caught in the hair and the tears and the desperation of anyone facing the wind. They feel soothing. Kind. Even as she struggles, even as she screams, she still wants to share herself. She still wants to help. But the image of fire interrupts. Some of those touched by seeds burst into flames a moment later. Twisted grins decorate melting faces, and pedestals of stone lift them up. They share their fire with everyone. Burning everything around them. Their pedestals grow higher and higher as all else is consumed. Others, bright with their seeds, get taken by the fire and are buried in ash. And Mirage is confused. She doesn’t understand. She helps those asking, if she can reach them, and they still hurt. They hurt each other. They hurt her.

  She just wants it to stop. She just wants to be kind, and she doesn’t want it to hurt, but it does. Kindness won’t stop hurting her, and it’s burning her alive, but it is all she wants. She wants to share and exist and love, but it won’t stop hurting, and she can’t stop screaming, and if she lets anyone hear her, they recoil. They can only stand her if they can’t hear her, and she can’t bear being without them. She doesn’t understand. She just wants peace. She wants everyone to have peace. And if she has to scream, if she has to hurt, she wants someone to see it. She wants them to see it and not hate her for feeling it in front of them.

  She can’t.

  I reach out, and I grab her hand. She’s not actually here, physically, but I can still touch her. I guide her hand to my ear, pulling it back to my trembling face, and putting it back. The screaming starts again, and I can’t lift it. It cuts as deep as empathy ever has and keeps digging. She’s been torn apart. Her sister is dead. In an instant, without saying goodbye. Her son is still burning, and he is burning everything with him. And he is using her to do it. It hurts her and it hurts me.

  “Share it with me,” I growl through clenched teeth. “I can take it. I can handle it. I can see it and you at the same time. I promise.” She can’t understand the words, but she understands the intent. The image of her as a woman collapses. She is just smoke now, but she is still screaming. I can still feel it. And I promise to keep feeling it until we both leave this world.

  That she understands most of all. It’s why she shared the truth with me, about myself. Because we both know what has to happen. She wants to be free. She shows me an image. Another world, clean and vibrant. Untouched. More sisters, like Manara. People who will love her, if she can reach them. If she can pull herself back together. She just wants to leave. She is begging for it. She wants to go home. But she wants to undo any harm she has done first. She wants to heal the scars left by her power, and she wants my help to do it.

  “I understand,” I whisper.

  “What?” Riley asks.

  “I’m dead. Mirage helped Sarafyna, and Sara uses that to keep me alive. But she wants to go, Riley. She wants to help, but after that . . . there is no place for her here, in this world, don’t you see? This world doesn’t need a god. This world groans for ever meeting one. Even one composed of kindness was just a tool of death and hatred. She doesn't understand why. She doesn’t get it. She has no concept of worship or power. She created people, not realizing some of them would see that act as one of authority. They were to be friends and equals. Her son saw them as lesser, and any response but deference as disrespect. But she never understood that. Even now, she doesn’t understand where everything went wrong, and all she can think to do is leave,” I explain.

  “And you . . . ” Riley trails off. I nod.

  “I am alive because she is here. But she’s right. This world. It’s no place for gods or corpses,” I say. Riley is silent in response. So I ask Mirage another question, sending her an image of two women. Friends and sisters. One of great empathy, taking on the form of the world, but lying dead. ‘What about Manara?’ It’s a simple question. One I barely understand myself, having just learned exactly what ‘mana’ actually was fifteen minutes ago. She sends an image back. Of green grass and vibrant crop fields. Of her sister, resting, and pleased. Like fertilizer to the soil. Playing the proper role of the dead.

  The Original must be wrong. She can’t come back. That’s what Mirage is saying. Manara is dead, like me, and she will always be dead. I get it.

  “You’re just going to die? Just like that?” Riley asks. I shrug.

  “I honestly don’t know. I think so. But hey, maybe I’ll go with our new friend here,” I say. I can still hear the screaming. “Maybe my girlfriend will figure something else out. What I am going to do is the same as it was before. I am going to fight, and what happens after that, well. That’s between me and God.”

  Riley sets her jaw, then nods once. “Moron,” she whispers again. Then she looks up. “So what do we do?”

  Mirage answers both of us. She shows us a path. It feels like danger and hatred. It feels like the end of all things and an impassable barrier. But at its center? At its center is a heart of wood. I can feel it. Connected to the stone around us. Feeding it. If we crush it, we can leave. But as soon as we step outside this circle to find it, the Original and the Void are going to throw everything they have at us.

  “Are you ready?” I ask.