My body twists in another rotation. The Being’s wings are cloaked in curling shadows, flaring impossibly wide, seeping over the sky—a spilled-ink tsunami. Fog burgeons out of the crater behind it, blooming into a mushroom cloud that towers up and out like it’s the end of the world. The monster snarls a challenge to the city. I tumble past its ducked head: delicate reptilian nostrils, teeth carved of night. Eyes a violent golden contrast to the black of its body. At least I won’t end my life in this thing’s maw.

Another rotation. The ground is closer now. People are streaming out of the shelters like ants from a squashed hill. The water beneath them is a vast mirror, and I laugh at the irony.

Then I stop laughing.

I remember how, thirteen months ago, mirrors were the only thing that Mirage offered as an exit. Then we got rid of those and he started showing us the door through polished metal and reflective sunglasses. I remember wondering when the ocean itself would be too reflective for safety—when we would all be doomed.

Another rotation. I’ve got fifty feet before I hit the ground. Shadows creep across my vision as I start to lose consciousness.

I want to close my eyes but don’t dare. “Mirage!” I shout, hoping he can hear me. Hoping that in the real world, I still have my Being-stung palm against the ship’s rainbow floor, that I can still communicate with him. “Use the water!” My words are slurred and sluggish. I’m not sure if he’d even be able to understand them.

One last rotation. Thirty feet left. I’m aimed right at the street in front of City Hall. The water here is dammed up, maybe knee-deep. It’s not nearly enough to break my fall. But maybe, maybe, it could be enough to get me out.

The darkness closes in on me. It muffles my hearing, muffles the wind in my ears, muffles the screams of the people below. When a swarm of batlike Beings erupt from a squat building two streets over, they blend into the shadows already in my head. It’s not until I spot a giant onyx sea serpent snaking through the debris of the old train station that it registers:

The plan worked. Mirrors, and Beings, are everywhere. And it won’t matter at all, not to me, unless …

There! A vast rainbow sheen starts at one end of the island and ripples its way toward the city center. It swallows the fleeing people as it goes, body after body blinking out of existence. They’ll wake up safe on the ship. Will I?

I’m racing against my death to the colorful shimmer of the exit. It’s five feet away. So is the ground. But in the end, it’s the shadows creeping across my vision that win the race.