The laugh was dry. Papery. The kind of sound leaves make when you step on them in autumn.
Kairito didn't turn.
His hand was on the cup. The rim was warm. The light inside, if it was light, pulsed against his palm like a second heartbeat. Iron taste in his mouth. He hadn't drunk anything.
"You're supposed to be dead."
The voice came from everywhere. Roots. Walls. The air itself.
"I am."
He looked at the cup. The liquid inside was clear. Too clear. Like the space between raindrops. He could see through it, through the bottom of the cup, through the table, to the floor below. Roots there too. Coiled. Waiting.
"Then why are you talking?"
Another laugh. Closer now. He felt breath on the back of his neck, cold, dry, smelling of clay and old water.
"Because you're not listening."
He turned.
A woman sat on the edge of the table. She hadn't been there a second ago. Her skin was the color of mushroom flesh, pale, mottled, thin enough to see the veins beneath. Her hair was roots. Her eyes were holes. Not empty. Just holes. Like the one in his chest.
She was wearing his sandals.
"Those are mine."
"Were." She swung her feet. The sandals were too small for her. Her heels hung off the back. "You won't need them where you're going."
He looked down at his bare feet. The roots on the floor were moving. Slow. Coiling around his ankles like cats deciding whether to rub or bite.
"Where am I going?"
She tilted her head. The holes that were her eyes didn't move with the rest of her face. They stayed fixed on the cup.
"You drank."
"I didn't."
"You will."
She reached out. Her fingers were too long. The nails were dirt. Real dirt, packed under them, with something green growing. She tapped the cup once. The sound was a bell. A bell made of mud.
The liquid inside rippled.
He saw something in the ripple. A city. Burning. Not burning, unmaking. Buildings folding into themselves like paper in water. People standing still while the ground ate them from the feet up. And at the center, a child. Ten years old. Standing in a crater, looking up at something with too many mouths.
His face.
"That's not,"
"It is." She leaned forward. Her breath was cold. "You pulled out the mana. The hole in the world is yours now. And it's hungry."
He looked at the cup again. The vision was gone. Just clear liquid. Too clear.
"The mana was keeping it closed."
She smiled. Her teeth were roots too. Gnarled. Growing in directions teeth shouldn't grow.
"The mana was feeding it. You think that thing in the tower was the seal? No. The seal was the dam. And you've been the river for ten years. Pouring. Never stopping. The dam got very full."
His chest ached. The hole there was warm. He could feel the roots on the floor pulsing in rhythm with it.
"Then what's in the cup?"
"The dam."
He stared at her.
"Drink it," she said. "Put the mana back. The hole closes. The thing in the crater goes back where it belongs. You go back to being what you were."
"And if I don't?"
She shrugged. The gesture was too human. It looked wrong on her, like a puppet trying to be a person.
"Then the hole stays open. The thing keeps rising. Your friend up there," she pointed at the ceiling, at the dirt above them, at the clearing where Sera was still standing, maybe still alive "gets eaten. Then the rest. Then everything."
He looked at the cup.
The liquid was still. Waiting.
"You said I was supposed to be dead."
"I did."
"Then why am I here?"
She slid off the table. Her feet touched the roots. The roots opened for her, made a path. She walked to the door, the one he'd come through, and stopped. Turned.
"Because you're not dead yet."
She reached into her chest. The same way he had. Her hand went through skin like smoke. When she pulled it out, she was holding something.
A coal. Red. Dying. Small.
His mana.
It pulsed once in her palm. Weak. The light barely reached the walls.
"This is what's left," she said. "The hole took the rest. But this," she held it up "this is the first spark. The one the gods lit when they made you. They don't make them like this anymore."
She tossed it.
He caught it.
The coal sat in his palm. Warm. Familiar. The hole in his chest pulsed. Once. Twice. Reaching.
"You can put it back," she said. "Go upstairs. Close the hole. Save the girl. Live forever, ten years old, burning for a world that hates you."
"Or?"
"Or you don't."
She stepped through the door. The roots closed behind her. But her voice came through anyway. Muffled. Like stones grinding.
"The cup is the dam. The spark is the river. Pick one."
He stood in the room. The coal in one hand. The cup in the other.
The roots were at his ankles now. Coiled tight. They were warm.
Above him, somewhere in the cold moonlight, Sera screamed again. Shorter this time. More scared.
He looked at the coal.
He looked at the cup.
He opened his mouth.