She learns quickly that the Fiati have named their city Fiatosta and that they live in hollowed-out homes inside pockets of trapped air within the aquifer, the paths that bind each city dwelling kept underwater, save the hours when the tide pulls the wet from the highest dwellings.

  They swim most places, even Monet, who, despite scarcely recovering her weight, has strong, veiny legs to show for it. Her toes, however, are still savaged, ruined. The elders look her over, weep at the state of her feet and huff their agonies into rhythm.

  They clean and apply salve, a deep rich cerulean stinking of mud, before wrapping up to the ankles in flesh—eel flesh to be exact, still damp and slimy. They rub the excess into her cuts and over her skin and bind it all together with curled fish hooks, blunted and flattened.

  Roach watches on, intrigued. Notes that their garments are vaguely oiled, white cloth stained in a pungent dye. Beads of water drop off the sleeves when they rinse their hands; the fabric is light but entirely waterproof.

  Before they leave, an elder invites them over, sharing a corked bottle of amber fluid. She explains through gestures and puffs that the concoction is built from eel excretion and an underwater fungus — a mushroom dense with cobalt pearl spores. Several are kept in jars on the desk, alongside hundreds of baby eels crammed into vinegar; to the left of the table is a deep porcelain tub thick with thrashing serpentine bodies. The smell is egregious, but she leans in close, dips her finger in for a taste before she's laughed at and gently batted away.

  In turn, she introduces them to her delectable flower, of which she’s already running low. She’s excited by the glow in the elderly woman’s eyes as she examines a pink and drying petal — what’s left of her dwindling supply.

  “I could bring you some more,” the little girl beams, offering the canister before drawing it back just as the women’s fingers brush the bottom, “for a price.”

  Later, with her pocket stuffed full of eel (which leaks smelly wet into her trousers) and her jacket full of mushrooms, Monet leads them closer to the city opening, the floor still damp and dewy. They walk the edge of an enormous dive, water drawing further and further from the base, and descend a boggy set of stairs. Soon enough, the tide licks at their toes. Even this far down, the water is black, splitting off into deeper tunnels glowing with distant light.

  Monet draws forward — home at last, but the Queen doesn't budge. She's scared of the water. She’ll never admit it; of course she’ll never admit it, but her heart hiccups to her throat when she stands too close to the edge. Monet must notice what she’s trying so hard to hide, for she cups her hand again and tugs her gently.

  “We would welcome you.”

  Roach laughs. “I’ve never been so welcomed.”

  “Come then, I will hold your hand if it pleases you.”

  Roach squeezes her fingers. “I can’t,” she laments, “but hold it anyway?”

  Monet smiles, “Only if you mean to stay.”

  “And what if I mean to return?”

  “Then I will hold you for as long as you are with me.”

  She does.

  For hours longer than Roach should allow.

  They talk at length with the Fiati elders closest to the surface, many of whom have forgone language completely. They’re the oldest people the Queen has ever seen, wrinkled up like little fish on the shore. They’ve been exploring the basin for generations, cultivating foliage and air-breeding plants within canyons and cave systems. Their dominions stretch well beyond the aquifer, Marina, and shared Spine waters.

  She sees many figures and odes to the moon-catcher woman deeper in the halls, most surrounding an enormous spiral column carved with breathing spirals and long-forgotten vowels. It’s centred around stone pools filled with mineral water. Besides it, a winding stair—mostly waterfall—that spirals deep into black depths. She spies an elderly man loitering at the edge, old and bent over but balanced perfectly at the precipice. He mimics a dive but doesn’t follow through, only spreads out his tired arms like wings.

  Curious, she approaches, tugging Monet obediently along.

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  He calls the dive the Descent. A master maze of tunnels he’d long ago thrived within. He can still hold his breath, he tells her, but his back or spine or perhaps age everywhere else has left him incapable.

  Monet tells her about the world below, the silent ecosystem blooming in the pitch black.

  The old man’s smile is listless. “If you swim far enough, you’ll find her sleeping.”

  Roach inclines her head. “What does that mean?”

  The old man doesn’t elaborate, merely breathes.

  Later, when Roach lingers by the edge of the city again, Monet notices that the fear has receded from her eyes, replaced by curiosity, eager and growing. “I can teach you.”

  “To swim?” The Queen is too excited to play coy.

  “Yes. Roach. I—my clan will not forget such kindness.”

  Copper eyes narrow. Her lips curl slyly. “Why?” She asks, dragging out the word. She might be amused. Might be reaching.

  Monet blinks. Confused, because it’s obvious and yet she says it anyway. “I am indebted to you.”

  Roach looks away to hide her smirk. To hide the undulating sickness that accompanies it within the pits of her stomach. Sticky and dark and full of tar that laps at all the goodness in her soul.

  Eat. Eat. Eat.

  She’s fatter than them all.

  She stands straighter. “Well, I could use some lessons.”

  She’ll take a whole lot more than that.

  It starts small.

  Hours pass before she decides to return home. Her hand is clammy and cramping but still being held. Monet keeps her promise right to the boundary, hands dropping like the mossy curtain that separates their two worlds.

  The Fiati girl leans in before they part, and farewell is a breath blown tenderly upon Roach’s lips — a silent whistle that sings a note in her chest; her eyelashes flutter.

  Roach squeezes her fingers, leans forward to press their foreheads close. There’s tears in her eyes again. She wills then away and yet they only fall.

  “I will come back.”

  Monet smiles. “I know.”

  Even as she leaves, now alone in the carnivorous darkness, Roach’s heart is still beating rapidly, fluttering within her chest with all the violent energy of an community’s worth of unhinged love. She places a palm across the perilous thrash and counts the beats.

  Thumpthump. Thumpthump.

  She kind of liked it. Being fussed over like that. A negligent birth-giver had left her wanting, and now a hundred arms had held her all at once.

  Atonement?

  Had Mother sent them?

  No — this was her doing. Roach, Queen of lost things.

  That woman could conjure nothing but destruction, and even that she had needed help with.

  Clink. Clink.

  Metallic. Something cold in the dark.

  She doesn’t need to look, but her lips curl, and her bare foot kicks a pebble into shadow. It clicks against stone.

  Nothing is there.

  “I'm here,” she hums to the nothingness. “I’m still here—” the girl splays her arms, voice sing-song now as she trots along the vacant path.

  Something dense kisses up her spine, tries to grapple at her lantern-bright joy, always eager to snuff it out, snuff her out.

  She runs faster, the hand held above her heart now pounding back against the organ, trying to reach it, embrace it as she had just been embraced. A hero’s embrace.

  Clink. Clink.

  Harder. Faster. She sprints now, scaling ancient tunnels with quick feet; she ducks under a beam and twirls through a fork in the road.

  Clink. Clink.

  Her calloused heels dig into hard stone, but dust still sputters as she stops. The queen turns suddenly, fist thundering against her chest as she glares once more into… Nothing.

  Thumpthump.

  ‘Deep breath, little girl. Straighten up, find your senses.’

  She fixes her posture, squares out her shoulders, and tries to be older and dreary. She wears his voice, at first, to defend herself. “Begone!” She roars, voice all gravel and wrath. She then stamps her foot; her eyes are narrowed copper wire, sharpened by a furrowed brow. Her heart is still hers, for it thrashes, and she steels her nerves by finding something to ground her — one of the countless things she keeps clattering in her hair or her trousers. The eel in her pocket, dripping and slimy, is not pleasant, but neither is—

  Clink. Clink.

  ‘Hallucinations of the auditory kind are best addressed with medication… but since we're already dead, why don't we explore—’

  Not you.

  Not him.

  Not all echoes will lead her to the light.

  Roach hears something humming low in the shadow, a song she’d like to reclaim but can't — breathe. Breath is sacred.

  I'm here. I'm here. I'm real. I'm real.

  Her fingers rub anxiously over the bone in her hair, her thumb smoothing over divots and rises she’s long since memorised.

  Silence is a weapon, too. She tries to be a boy with no face. A child without the muscles for fear.

  CLINK. CLINK.

  She’s all at once overcome by just how quickly the joy disappears.

  How swiftly the ghosts return.

  Her shoulders sag as the performance dies with the lie. As herself, she says:

  “Haunt me all you like. I’m not going to stop.” She lifts her head, her face softer now but no less pained, her tears—this time—shown to no one. To nothing. “I’m going to see it all.”

  Clink. Clink.

  “Nothing will stop me.” She straightens once again, turns on her heel to leave, but pauses for one beat longer to cast a last glance into absence. Eyes, hard set, she whispers: “Not even you.”

  The humming has stopped, but it will come back, just like all the old ghosts do, tended or renounced, honoured or disgraced; the tunnels are haunted by the echoes of the past.

  Not gone. Never gone.

  The Queen of Roach’s will carry them all into the flame.

  Nothing can’t stop her.