Leo was nowhere to be seen but Sera could feel his presence, could sense his heart beating alongside hers. It must be her magic in him that connected them, that held his consciousness here with her but unable to take form. She hoped he was not too frightened—this was all strange and new for her; she couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him.

As she took in her surroundings, she realized she was below the City. She thought back to her sacrifice, when she had fallen wheeling through space and seen the underbelly of the City Above the Sky with its long stalactites protruding out like icicles. She had never considered there was a whole world contained within, one that glowed ice-blue and ghostly green.

“How am I here?” Sera asked, the words tumbling out clumsily.

“I think . . .” Leela turned her gaze up to where heavy golden fruit hung from white vines. “I ate the fruit and then I called to you and you came.”

“The moonstone,” Sera said, wishing she could touch it, hold it out, show it to her friend. “It went hot in my hand.” She frowned. “What fruit? What is this place?”

“The moonstone,” Leela muttered, as if answering a question Sera had not asked. Then she brightened. “I call it the Sky Gardens. This is a secret place beneath the City that until now, only the High Priestess has been to.”

“Is she here?” Sera asked, hopeful that someone might be able to explain what was happening. She was surprised to see Leela’s face cloud over.

“No,” she said. “She is not who she pretends to be. This City is in turmoil, Sera. So much has changed since you fell.”

Sera listened, thunderstruck, as Leela told her tale. When she got to the part about Cerulean trapped inside the stalactites, Sera let out cry of shock and disgust, and by the time she learned of Leela’s penance, Sera wished she could sit down, but the pool held her still and steady.

When Leela had finished, Sera was quiet for a while, her head spinning with all these revelations. She did not know what to say or how to feel. Leela seemed to understand.

“It was hard for me too,” she said. “To accept it. We have trusted in the High Priestess for so long.”

“But why pick me?” Sera wondered aloud. “I was no threat to her. I was a nuisance.”

“Kandra thought perhaps you had been chosen by Mother Sun to be the next High Priestess,” Leela said. It was so odd to hear Leela call Sera’s purple mother by her given name.

“That cannot be true,” Sera said. “I would make a terrible High Priestess. No one in the City would accept me.”

But she remembered the words she had seen on the bowl, the day of the choosing ceremony. Heal them, the symbols had said.