Ye Eun sighed softly, foul wind from the Breach tousling her short hair. “I know,” she said. “But it was the only way I could make sure you’d enter the Breach.”

“Make . . . sure?”

“I can’t let Ae Ri be sacrificed.” Her gaze was frank. “Not like I was. She’s all I have.”

I breathed a laugh. “If I hesitated, were you planning to push me?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” I gulped. “Well, no need for that.” And despite Ye Eun’s motivations, I was grateful for the company.

The faint voices of the singing townsfolk, combined with the fainter roar of the largest army in five oceans, rung in my ears as I stared into the wide, smirking Breach. It reminded me of an eye: a perimeter dazzling with color, with a void at its center that seemed to go on forever.

“Ye Eun?” I said, pulling my gaze back to her face.

“Mm?” Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest. Though she avoided looking at me, water glinted on her cheeks and her chin quivered.

“Can you promise me one thing?” I asked. “Once this is all over . . . Live for something besides Ae Ri.”

She blinked with surprise. “But she needs me.”

“I know. But she’ll grow up. Her family will expand.” The image of Dayo and Ai Ling cooing over Ae Ri flashed in my mind. “So will yours. And protecting someone else isn’t a purpose, Ye Eun. I learned that the hard way.” I smiled at her sadly. “What did you enjoy before all this? Back when you thought heroes could save the day?”

She bit her lip, tracing the purple patterns on her thin arms. “I liked flowers,” she said at last. “They were hard to grow on Mount Sagimsan. Too rocky. But I always managed. I think . . . maybe somewhere sunny, like Oluwan, I could grow lilies again.”

“That’s a start.”

She inhaled thoughtfully, then reached in her pocket and pressed something into my palm: a tiny white blossom, pressed and dried. “It’s from your flower crown,” she mumbled. “The one I made you when we first met. I don’t know why I kept it. But . . . I liked having it in the Underworld.”

My fingers closed around it. “Thank you.”

Another beat passed in silence. The chilling blue light danced across our faces.

“It’s probably easier if you go backward,” Ye Eun blurted. “That’s the one thing I regretted when I did it. Going face-first. Backward, you can keep your eyes on the light until it’s gone.”

I swallowed hard. “Backward it is then.” I turned around, placing my heels on the edge of the Breach. My heart pounded against my chest. “Ye Eun?”

“Empress?”

“I—I think I want that push, after all.”

She chuckled quietly and nodded, tears running over her pursed mouth. “For Ae Ri.”

I took in her brave, slight features, hardened by invisible scars. “And for lilies,” I said.

Then I placed her small hands on my shoulders. When at last she pushed, a small wail escaped her lips—and my heart leapt into my throat as I fell down, down, to the bottom of the world.