“No. I saw her in a vision, like the other ones I’ve had, only this was the clearest one yet. She is on the planet, Kandra. She is alive.”

Kandra jerked her hands away. Leela was surprised to see her mouth set in a hard line.

“That is not a funny jest.”

Leela frowned. “It is no jest at all. I saw her. It was real.”

“You don’t know that,” Kandra said. “You don’t know what these visions are. You said so yourself. They could be lies or tricks. They could be some dark magic of the High Priestess. She was able to take my memories of Estelle away; who is to say she cannot implant memories as well? You don’t know, Leela.”

“But I do.” This was not at all the reaction Leela had been expecting. “I mean, I didn’t before, but I do now. It was no trick or spell. I felt Sera’s heart beating in my chest as if we were blood bonding. It is a heartbeat I would know anywhere. Besides, the High Priestess did not even know I was there. Sera has my moonstone and I think it saved her. I’ve been seeing her through it, or . . . or it’s connected us in some way. But those other visions were from the planet too, I’m sure of it. She’s down there, Kandra. And I’m going to find a way to bring her home.”

“Stop.” Kandra’s voice was sharp as ice breaking and she stepped back as if frightened of Leela. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t . . . she is gone. She is gone and I must bear a new daughter and you cannot come here and tell me otherwise. You cannot give me false hope.”

Leela felt a sharp twinge of anger. “There is nothing false about it,” she said. Why did Kandra not believe her?

“Kandra!” one of the midwives called, and the two of them jumped.

“I must go,” Kandra said, turning away. “Do not come back.”

Leela felt empty as she watched her only confidant hurry toward the flower-strewn field to join the other purple mothers. This was not how she had imagined the conversation would go. She’d thought Kandra would be overjoyed. She’d thought she was bringing good news, not sadness and heartbreak.

“I’ll find a way to show her,” Leela muttered aloud to herself. “I’ll prove that Sera is still alive.”

She would return to the City’s underbelly and learn all she could about that underground garden and the clear pools and the stalactites and what it all meant. If Kandra could not help her now, Leela would do this on her own. The weight of it threatened to crush her but she was determined to shoulder it.

She turned to make her way back across the stones to the path and abruptly found herself face-to-face with the last person she wished to see.