“It’s in your hand,” she said. “You didn’t drop it. I wouldn’t let you.”

He looked down, relaxing slightly when he saw the flute. He still didn’t speak.

Cora sat back on her calves, knees folded beneath her, sticky pink liquid soaking every inch of her, and for the first time since leaving the Trenches, she felt almost content. She felt almost like she was home. Turning, she told Kade and Rini, “He’s going to be all right.”

“Thank God,” said Kade. “Aunt Eleanor will forgive me for Nadya deciding to stay behind in an Underworld that might border on her own, but she wouldn’t forgive me for a drowning.”

“Why wouldn’t he have been all right?” asked Rini. “It’s just sugar.”

“People who don’t come from here can die if they breathe too much liquid,” said Cora. “It’s called ‘drowning.’”

Rini looked alarmed. “What a dreadful world you have. I wouldn’t want to live in a place where mothers die and people can’t breathe the sea.”

“Yeah, well, you work with what you have,” muttered Cora, thinking about pills and pools and drownings. She turned back to Christopher. “Feel like you can get up?”

He nodded, still silently. Leaning forward, Cora hooked her hands under his arms and stood, pulling him along with her, providing the leverage he needed to get his feet back under himself. Christopher coughed one more time, pressing a hand to the base of his throat.

“Burns,” he rasped.

“That’s the carbonation,” said Cora. “Don’t breathe soda. Don’t breathe water either, unless you’re built for it. Chlorine fucks you up pretty bad too. It’ll pass.”

Christopher nodded, lowering his hand and letting it join its partner in gripping the bone flute, which was already dry and didn’t appear to have been stained by its passage through an infinity of pink dye.

The same couldn’t be said for the rest of them. Kade’s formerly white shirt was now a pleasant shade of pink, and Rini’s dress was less “melting sherbet” and more “strawberry smoothie.” Cora had been wearing dark colors, but her white socks weren’t anymore. Even Sumi glittered with tiny beads of pink liquid, like jewels in the sun.

“This just keeps getting weirder and I’m not sure I like it,” muttered Cora.

Kade gave her a sympathetic look before running a hand back over his hair, releasing a sticky wave of soda. “Try not to think about it too hard. We don’t know how much logic this place can handle, and if it starts trying to break us because we’re applying too many rules, we’re going to have a problem.” He turned to Rini. “We’re on your home turf now. Where do we go to find your mother’s nonsense? We’re going to need that if we want to put her back together.”