“He’s using my grandmother’s power to fuel it. She suffers. He knows this and does nothing. To him we’re tools to be used.”

The line of her mouth hardened. I’d hit a nerve.

“Why did you want to die?”

Derision twisted her face.

“Tell me, City Eater. Why did you want to die?”

“Because this wasn’t my world,” she snarled. “There is nothing for me here.”

“It’s not his world either. If he isn’t stopped, he’ll be the last of our line, because I’ll fight to my death to protect the man I love and my future child. He’ll destroy me, and after I’m gone, he’ll murder my baby. Even if he takes the child and lets him grow, sooner or later he’ll kill him, because my father can’t stand to share even an iota of power. Ask yourself why none of your children survived. Why none of his? It’s because he is a creature who eats his young. Our family has no future. He has devoured it.”

Her face was completely flat.

“Sooner or later all of us will end up here, and he won’t stop until he chokes the life out of the rest of the land. He’ll turn this world into a copy of the old one, until it too collapses under his weight, and the cycle will begin anew. Ten thousand years from now, when you’ve been awakened for the third time, and another girl stands in my place asking for your help, will you ask her why?”

I couldn’t tell if any of it sank in.

“Look at it.” I raised my hands, indicating the stone box we stood in. “Just look at it.”

Magic flared. The image of my grandmother vanished and an inferno of pale purple light blazed in her place, bleeding magic. Erra’s translucent form melted into it. I raised my hand to shield my eyes. Magic raged around me, boiling and twisting.

Silence stretched.

“Good speech,” Erra said from somewhere within the inferno.

“It’s not—”

“What else do you have?”

What else? I grappled with the question, trying to think of something—anything—to convince her.

“He’s rebuilding the Water Gardens.”

“What about it?”

“He told me you used to love them. You used to play there together. That you had a happy childhood.”

“And?”

“Take my memories. I know you can do it, because my grandmother has done it. Look into my head. See the childhood my father has given me.”

The light splayed out and licked me, seizing me into a tight, hard fist. Pain seared my mind, pulling me apart, as if my soul were fabric and it was unraveling thread by thread. I let it hurt me and melted into it, giving up everything, all my memories, all my fears, and all of my dreams.

•   •   •