The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(57)

This was all rather more information than Agnes found herself able to process. Sera seemed to realize this—she sat back and scratched her neck, her face pensive.

“Hmm,” she mused. “This is a lot to explain.”

“Yes,” Agnes agreed. She tried to organize her thoughts, but they remained stubbornly scattered. “Who were those women with the ribbons around their necks?”

Sera’s expression grew mournful. “Those are my mothers. Two of them, at least.”

“How many do you have?” she asked incredulously.

“Three. Purple, orange, and green. For the three Moon Daughters. But that’s not how it works here, right? Here you have a mother and a father.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Agnes said, feeling faint. Three mothers? What were moon daughters?

“My City is tethered to this planet, you see,” Sera continued. “And I was chosen to be sacrificed to break the tether so it could move to a new planet, but . . . I didn’t do it right and I fell into that hole that you and Leo found me in. So now I need to know if the tether is still there or if another Cerulean has been chosen, and the sacrifice worked, and the City is lost to me forever, traveling through the vast expanse of space to find a new home.” Her tone shifted throughout this speech and ended on a melancholy note.

“You were sacrificed?” Agnes cried.

“I was chosen,” Sera said, “by Mother Sun, to throw myself from the dais in the Night Gardens.”

“And you did?” Agnes knew the answer to that, of course, but still . . . she saw this sweet, slender girl in a whole new light.

Sera nodded. “But I was meant to die, to spill my blood and break the tether, and clearly that did not happen.” She put her hands on Agnes’s knees. “It is such a joy to be able to speak to you. You have no idea how hard it is to not be understood.”

Agnes knew that somewhere inside, she was happy about this development too, but she couldn’t seem to settle on any one emotion right now.

“And this city . . . it’s in the sky?”

“Above the sky,” Sera clarified. “In space.”

“And this tether, what does it look like?”

“Like a finely wrought chain of magic,” she said, as if that should explain it. “In links of blue and silver and gold.”

“And it’s attached to our planet? This planet? To Kaolin?”

Sera sighed. “I do not know where the tether has buried itself. It could be in Kaolin, but it could be in Pelago. Or it could be in the middle of the ocean. That’s why I need to see.” She looked at the windowless walls around them.

“Well, I can certainly help you look for it,” Agnes said.

“No, you can’t. It is invisible to human eyes. Only a Cerulean will be able to see it.”

Agnes supposed that the papers would have already reported if a chain of magic shooting down from space had been discovered.

“I wish I could see it,” she said. “Your city. I want to understand . . . where you come from, who you are. This is all pretty overwhelming.”

Sera went silent and stared at her hands. Agnes realized this was pretty overwhelming for her, too.

“Maybe I can show you.”

“That glowing thing again?” Agnes asked with trepidation.

“Yes.” Sera’s fingertip lit up. “I think . . . if I focus on what I want . . .”

She did not sound nearly sure enough of herself for Agnes’s liking, and she had no desire to have her memories probed again.

Describe in detail the bravest thing you have ever done in the name of science.

The essay subject popped into her head, and she saw it in a new light. Was she really going to run from this new, albeit frightening, discovery? This was more important than an essay or an interview or even studying at the University of Ithilia at all. This was her chance to help someone, a person who had no one else on the entire planet but her. Was she a mouse, like Vada had said? Was the fear of someone uncovering a few embarrassing moments or the secret of her sexuality going to keep her from exploring an entirely new world?

“I can do it, Agnes,” Sera said, her face set. “I can feel it. I . . . I’m stronger on this planet in some ways. I understand myself now, I think, or a little better at least. I can show you. I will show you.”

It seemed they were both entering uncharted territory. With grim determination, Agnes pressed her finger once more against Sera’s.

The heat was bearable this time, maybe because she was better prepared for it. It raced up her arm, dancing in her veins and closing around her heart. The sense of being an empty vessel was not as unpleasant now that she had some small concept of what was happening, and when her body jerked and her mind was transported to another place, she stared around in wonder and did not question what she was seeing.

She was standing beside Sera on a small island in front of a tall building, shaped like an upside-down cone and made of thick glass with golden doors. It reached up high into the sky, but this sky wasn’t blue and dotted with clouds, it was just . . . space. Stars and darkness. A luminescent butterfly flitted past, its wings flashing blues and yellows. There was a hedge surrounding part of the structure in a semicircle. Agnes could see at least two arching white bridges connecting the island to the land across the river, where other structures sat, little domes that must be houses—they were made of glass too. Many had gardens surrounding them.