The vertigo of freefalling lasted only a moment, replaced by a sickeningly slow descent, as though the air had thickened, and I fell through cold, brackish water. Around me was darkness—not black, but dense with clouds of murky green and cobalt. The mouth of the Breach faded quickly to a bright pinprick, but Ye Eun had been right—having something to look at comforted me, if only a mite. I learned immediately that screaming was a bad idea—the fog had a taste, and it was foul.

Down, down, down.

My hair billowed in a cloud around my ears. I could hear music—but not the songs of Ebujo City. A chaos of drumbeats and voices filled my mind, overlapping snatches of stories in whispered languages, as though the fog were full of memories. When at last my descent ended, I lay in a cavern lit by ghoulish floating lanterns. I had landed roughly on a pile of something uneven . . . but before I could investigate, I gagged, choking.

No air.

There was no air down here—inhaling, exhaling made no difference. My heart raced, sending sharp pains through my chest. Make it stop, I wanted to say as I flailed and gasped, a fish on a riverbank. This was a mistake. A bad dream. Make it all stop. But I didn’t—because that was what they wanted. The abiku couldn’t touch me without an invitation, but if my words gave them the smallest opening, they would take it.

Ye Eun’s calm voice echoed in my mind from months of training. Six steps to remember—six tasks to escape the Underworld.

First, remember that you need not die.

Clenching my fists, I forced my strange, airless breaths to slow.

“Still alive,” I croaked. My voice made clouds in the dim chamber. Already the cold was setting in, turning the ends of my fingers to stone. I closed my eyes, focusing on my decelerating pulse. An hour could have passed—or ten. Ye Eun had warned me that time passed differently in the Underworld. Depending on where I was, and what delusions the spirits made me suffer, what felt like a week could be a day in the world above . . . and vice versa.

You are all alone again, sighed the chorus of ojiji spirits, who had a tangible presence, like feathers brushing over my skin. Alone, alone, in a room with no windows. Just like in Bhekina House. Did you ever have friends, Wuraola?

“Still alive,” I yelled over them. “Still alive. Alive, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I tried to laugh then, but it hurt my chest, and I stopped. Instead, I chanted the names of my siblings—all twenty-two of them, as I struggled to a sitting position.

Second, came Ye Eun’s voice, fight the cold.

Invisible stones weighed on my limbs. Even my head was a burden. The cold seeped into my joints, as though I were slowly turning to marble, but after months of enduring Hwanghu’s icy essence, ambushing me from head to toe . . . slow, I could handle.