Hunter gave Ethan a single glance. He seemed to know what Ethan was thinking: there was so much to say, where could he even start?
Hunter nodded. Ethan nodded back.
Ethan turned and ran for the light.
KYLA
A set of wide, pale steps spiraled down into the earth, winding around the column of light. The steps didn’t seem to be tethered to anything. They floated in the air, sturdy enough under her feet, but Kyla found herself desperate to reach the bottom. Even after everything she’d seen these past three days, these floating stairs—like the first sinking moments of a dream—unnerved her to the bone.
Kyla went down. Down. Down. Down.
The column of silver light radiated unbearable heat. One slip on these stairs, one brush withthat, and all this would be over very fucking soon.
Down. Down. Down.
Above her, the city’s collapse echoed: stone cracking, the last of the towers falling. Gunshots were fired. A man screamed in pain. Hunter and Ryan both seemed good in a fight, but from what she’d seen on the silver street, Jack Allen appeared to have an endless supply of bodies. He’d overwhelm the pair eventually. He’d get here sooner than later.
Down. Down. Down.
With no warning, the stairs ended. She found herself standing on a wide platform of pale stone that ringed the column of light. Like the stairs, the platform was suspended in space with no obvious tether. The moment her foot hit the stone, all the sounds from up above ceased. She heard the soft tap of her feet, the sound of her heart in her ears, the rustle of clothing as Sarah reached the platform behind her, followed by Fernanda and Adeline, Ethan bringing up the rear.
But that was it. As if the world outside this chamber had vanished entirely.
Adeline murmured, “Where are we?”
Good question. When Kyla came to the platform’s edge and looked down, the motion below caught her eye—like the lapping of waves.
Whatever was down there was the source of the noise that had haunted them for days: a low moan of pain rose from the depths, echoing through the dark chamber.
And then, light.
The glow rose from beneath them, a diffuse starlight. Those were indeed waves Kyla saw lapping down there, far beneath the platform. The group was floating above a massive lake of the quicksilver material that also glazed the silver mirror in the old house. The lake stretched away, seemingly into infinity, letting off a faint illumination just strong enough to see the way its waves were growing stiller. Flatter.
The lake became motionless, and Kyla could see her face reflected back at her, far below. It was as if the lake itself waswatchingher.
Beside her, Ethan said, “Is that lake—”
Kyla nodded. “Te’lo’hi.”
The silver liquid began to move again. It gathered itself together, and a moment later a long ribbon of silver, like a tendril, rose from the lake’s surface, up and up, coming their way, before attaching itself to the edge near Kyla’s feet. The tendril took on a new, grooved shape, solidified. Kyla inhaled in surprise. It had created a set of stairs.
Two figures emerged from the lake. They started up the steps.
One of the figures appeared to be a woman. She was plump and short, maybe in her forties, and the woman looked, like so many other people at the motel, faintly familiar.
The other figure was a child, a boy, but he wasn’t like any child Kyla had ever seen. He climbed the stone steps with a limp, his whole frame tight with pain. His skin was alabaster white, his hair so long it came almost to his ankles. That hair was like a million silver filaments. They glowed with their own light.
When the boy reached the platform and came to stand a few feet away, Kyla saw that his eyes were the same bright silver as his hair. And they appeared to be weeping.
The boy opened his mouth, threw back his head, and released one of those moans of agony. How could such a small frame produce such a massive sound? Kyla and the others all recoiled in shock, hands over their ears.
Everyone but Sarah Powers. She was studying the plump womanwho’d come up the stairs with the child. This woman, too, had silver eyes and silver hair, but she seemed more solid, somehow. More human.
“I’ve seen a photograph of you before,” Sarah said. “You’re Laura O’Shea. Frank’s mother.”
The woman didn’t seem surprised Sarah would know this. More likely she hadn’t been surprised by much in a long, long time.
“We are, and we are not,” the woman said. Her voice was strange, resonant, carrying its own echo. “We are many people. A legacy. We are the Attendant.”
