We sit together in silence for what must be hours, until the sky is lilac above us and the lights have settled, the pool returning to normal. Even if the magic is gone, the area is still beautiful in the daytime. Massive blossoms rest among the leaves of the trees, and the fish are jewel bright, moving in lazy circles beneath us.
In the early morning, I begin to shiver, and Kea draws me close to him, an arm around my shoulders, his wings spread to curl around us like a feathery blanket. The blue-green feathers shine under the pale sun, kingfisher-bright.
Eventually, he speaks. 'We should get back. The others will be ready to leave by now.'
I nod.
He flies me back to the edge of the pool, and we make our way through the trees and back to the camp. He holds my hand the whole time, fingers twisted together.
Silva is just stirring when we get back, but the Umbra is already awake. She sees our clasped hands, raising an eyebrow, and I feel my cheeks flush. Kea stares her down, and she shrugs, moving to climb onto Silva's back.
Kea leaps onto her back with a quick burst of flaps, leaning down to help me up. He pulls me up in front of him, wrapping his arms around me. The Umbra watches us, a strange look on her face.
We talk throughout the journey, with me telling him about my life, about my struggles to succeed. He calls me brave and strong, igniting a warm glow in my chest.
I begin to recognize our surroundings. We are back in the rolling hills, passing tiny pale ponds.
'The Skylights are just the other side of Avet,' Kea explains, 'We'll pass it on our way there. We won't stop, though. There's no time.'
True to his word, we pass through Avet.
At first, everything seems to be normal. The buildings loom around us, and from a distance, the streets appear to be filled with people.
We draw closer. It is only then, with the sun throwing their long shadows down the street, that we realise just how still the people are. As if they were made of stone.
Then comes the awful, lurching jolt of realization as we get close enough to see that they are.
Silence reigns the dead town. A solitary crow stands at the peak of a roof, dark feathers blowing in the breeze. It calls out, long and hoarse, echoing down the street.
Silva pauses, letting us slide to the ground. She changes back to her almost-human form, confusion and grief wrought on her face. She walks to the closest statue, almost stumbling in her hast, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder. With a flash of horror, the crags and dips of rock slide into place to form a face in my mind.
Haggerd.
A tear slides down her cheek, soon followed by another. I walk to her, enfolding her in a hug, her tears wet against my shoulder. Her narrow body shakes with violent sobs.
Kea is equally upset, although he expresses it differently, his face set in anger.
Silva calms after a few minutes, and we continue to walk. Now she has lost her Ursta form, she won't be able to regain it, so we will have to walk the rest of the way.
The silence scares me, if I'm honest. It seems as if, at any moment, the statues could come to life, converging on us. Tearing us apart.
The next familiar face drives a needle of pain into my heart. Novo, standing just outside his open front door. He faces it, as if he had just turned to go back inside. The four armed girl I saw on my first visit is facing him, one arm raised in a wave. They must have been talking.
Kea moves to stand beside him, one hand reaching out. He stops before he touches the statue, his face freezing up. Silently, his shoulders begin to shake. In a flurry of wings, he leaps into the air, speeding above the houses and toward the edge of town. I watch him go, wishing I knew how to make things better. For him and for Novo.
I stare at the ground, trying not to meet the cold stone eyes as we make our way to the outskirts of town. Kea is waiting for us, perched on a chunk of stone, wings curled to shield his face. When he hears us coming, he takes off again, flying overhead as we walk.
Eventually, once the town is completely out of sight, Silva speaks. 'What... what do you think happened?' Her voice catches in her raw throat.
The Umbra shakes her head. 'It wasn't me. This was nothing natural. No magic, no technology could have managed that. There's something wrong with this world, and I don't know what it is yet, but I'll work it out.'
A loose feather drifts down from above us, shining blue-green. The Umbra catches it between long, pale fingers, examining it pensively.
It really isn't far to the Skylights. Silva stops us after only an hour.
We are standing on a massive plane of pale sand, stretching as far into the distance as I can see. The sky is wide and purple above us. Kea lands beside me, catching my hand in his. He must be feeling better, at least a little.
He reaches to his belt, bringing out that black-bladed knife and testing the weight in his hand.
His mouth sets into a hard line as he turns toward the Umbra.
The Umbra sighs.
'I can't do this anymore.' She says.
I stare at her in confusion. 'What?'
'How long before you put the pieces together? Are you telling me I'm the only one who has noticed? How slow can you be?'
Silva sighs. 'No. You're not the only one. I noticed too.'
'What?' I don't understand what they're talking about.
The Umbra closes her eyes, seeming to be collecting strength. 'This isn't real, Cassie. None of this was ever real. Don't you get it? You created this world.'
'No, I didn't. I crashed here.'
Kea lets the knife fall from his fingers, hitting the sand with a soft thump. 'It makes sense.'
'No, it doesn't!'
'Oh, Cassie, Cassie, Cassie... there were so many signs, and you didn't see any of them. Maybe because you're unobservant, most likely because you didn't want to see. You wanted so badly for this to all be real.' The Umbra gives me a sad smile. 'It never quite fit. A half formed magic system, technology lumped in, relationships that formed far too quickly and with too much feeling to ever be real. Just look at you and Kea! So many humanoid creatures, all speaking English. Everything so very different to the life you used to know, but still, fundamentally, the same. '
She strides toward me. 'This isn't real, Cassie. You tried, you really did, but a whole world? That was too much for your brain to handle. Did you never wonder why nothing quite made sense? Why we all speak exactly like you do? Why your clothes never got dirty, or torn? Why things would appear and disappear and change at random? That wasn't me, Cassie. That was no villain, no creature of magic or science. That was you. You created this entire world, but it was a little too much for you, fraying at the edges, glitching, not quite making sense.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.' My voice cracks.
She strokes my cheek. 'You do. Oh, Cassie, you do-'
The sky tears into dangling strips of color, wrapping around her slim form, pulling her upwards and splaying her against the stars like a fly caught in the web of a spider. She cries out, short and sharp, drops of blood speckling the front of her white dress.
'Stop it!' I yell. 'You're wrong!'
Unexpectedly, she laughs. Flecks of blood spray from her lips. 'I'm not. I'm right. I'm telling the truth. I'm telling you a truth you don't want to hear, and now you're killing me for it.'
'This isn't me!' Tears build, thickening my words.
'It is you- You're killing me-'
The strips of sky tighten, cutting into her stomach, twisting her, arms and legs and back bent and broken, and I see the life leave her eyes as she dies. Her mouth opens in one last cough, bright flecks of blood raining down. One hits my cheek, warm and awful, and I wipe it away.
Kea and Silva are standing to the side. Kea's expression is unreadable, and Silva has her hands to her mouth. They come to me, just when I need them to, and Silva begins to cry.
The sky is cracking, disappearing like it did so long ago in my dream, leaving only blank space behind. My tears are salty on my lips, and I shake my head, again and again, not wanting it to be true.
'No.' I whisper to Kea, voice scratchy. 'This is real. I crashed here. Remember? Don't you remember? You found me. We fell in love, and we-' I turn to Silva, '-we became best friends. Didn't we? Tell me we did.'
Kea holds my face between his palms, resting his forehead against mine. 'You know we're telling the truth. Deep down, you know it. You created this world, Cassie. You created me, and Silva, and the Umbra. I allowed you to experience the romance you never got to in the real world; Silva was the best friend you never had. You came here at the opportune moment, when this world needed you, just so you could save it. You got to live the adventure you wanted to. Your life ended too soon, so you made a new one – an extension of sorts, where you could be the hero.'
Silva sits beside me, crying almost harder than I am. 'You didn't want to die. But eventually, everyone has to. This world is falling apart, breaking to pieces, because you know we're telling the truth. In a few minutes, we will all be gone, and you will have to return to your own life. You have to die, Cassie.'
I do know they're telling the truth. I know it, and it hurts me more than anything else. I want to tear my heart from my chest, crush it in my fist, just to stop it hurting. My sobs are ragged and choking, tearing into my throat. The Umbra is gone now, her body faded away. Everything that ever proved her existence in this world is gone. Gone like the people of Avet; gone like my shuttle; gone like the rolling hills and forests of this place.
Silva is following quickly, and I cling to her, pulling her close to me. Her arms wrap around me, and I can feel as her body disappears, but I hold her until she no longer exists.
Now, it is just me a Kea, facing each other. He kisses me, as desperate as any in the past, pulling me into him. I run my hands over his wings, through his hair, feathers against my fingers, soft and silky and gone. I'm on my own, now, the landscape around me turning dark bit by bit, disappearing into shadows.
The area around me is growing smaller and smaller, and I pull further into myself, crying and crying and crying, more than ever before, more than when I said goodbye to my parents, more than when my gran died, more than when I learned I would never be an astronaut.
The ground beneath me disappears, and I open my eyes.
I'm sitting in the shuttle. The black hole stretches out around me, distorted stars surrounding me.
I can feel my bones breaking, one by one, skin stretching, brain pushing against my skull.
I close my eyes, and imagine myself back in Avet, sitting at Novo's kitchen table, eating giant fried eggs. Happy. Kea walks in, and this is before we got closer, before everything, but this is my imagination, and I can do anything I want, so he walks over to me, and he strokes my hair, and-