He was so focused on keeping his balance that he didn’t hear the board crack beneath his feet until it fell away and he was dangling over empty air, his grasp on the ropes the only thing keeping him from falling. He screamed, high and bright and clean, all of his terror and all of his resignation expressed in a single sound.

“Kade!” Christopher turned and bolted back to his position, dropping to his knees on the rickety wood and grabbing for his arms. “Take my hands! Don’t let go!”

The two commands seemed contradictory: to take his hands, Kade would have to let go, have to risk that split second when he wasn’t holding on to anything. Still, he started to loosen his grip, willing to gamble everything on how quickly they both could move, and was on the verge of reaching for him when the board Christopher was kneeling on snapped in two. Sumi grabbed the back of his shirt, dragging him to safety before anything worse could happen, and Kade was left dangling alone, surrounded by nothing but empty space.

“Kade!” shouted Christopher.

“It’s all right,” said Sumi, helping Christopher to his feet. She kept her eyes on Kade. “He’s a hero too, remember? We’re all heroes here. Sometimes a hero has to fall.”

The words were needles, red-hot and sharp as anything. Kade closed his eyes. If he held on, the others would keep trying to save him—even Jack, who looked lost and scared, as if this change to her plan were already too much to stand. She was more fragile than anyone remembered her being, faced with the loss of home and mentor and even her own skin. She was falling apart, and Kade was just … falling.

If he stayed where he was, the others would kill themselves trying to do the impossible, and in the end, he’d fall anyway. That wasn’t what a hero would do. That had never been what a hero would do.

He was never going to make it back to the school, never going to take over for Aunt Eleanor. He felt bad about that. By letting go, he would become one more person who let her down. But he didn’t have a choice. Not anymore.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Cora’s waiting for me.”

Then he let go.

He fell like a star, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t be tempted to look back up and see his friends growing smaller and smaller on the bridge, which was still intact enough to get them where they needed to go. He was the only sacrifice it had demanded, and he didn’t want to take their faces to his grave.

He fell, and the arms of the water were there to open wide and drag him down, without a sound, into the depths of the sea.

12 ALL THE DROWNED CHILDREN