The lake was troubled when Quinn stumbled into the clearing. It shouldn't have been—there was no wind, and even when there was, the lake never produced any real waves. But it did. And Quinn was glad for it.

They took off their clothes in jerky, angry motions without caring to look where they landed. Once they were left in their boxers and their binder, they marched straight towards the water, ignoring the cold as they kept moving.

"Move," they rasped, pushing their hands forward. And the water... it did. It moved into the direction Quinn had pointed, piling into a wave that was higher than they were tall before crashing down, making the entire lake surge with its force.

Quinn pulled their hands toward them, curled into tight fists against their chest. "Come back."

The water surged towards them, dark and fast and terrifying. They said "Stop" and it abruptly halted, parting down the middle and collapsing seconds before it could touch them.

Quinn did it again and again, making waves and then breaking them, pushing back against the lake and pulling it in again. They did it until their arms were straining and their throat felt raw, until they couldn't tell anymore if the wetness on their cheek was tears or water, until they couldn't remember where they ended and where the lake began.

And then, when the roaring of the water matched what they felt on the inside, they swam to the middle of the lake and did it once again. This time, they didn't say stop. They let the wave crash over them and drag them under.

Quinn sank like a stone. They didn't resist, didn't move a limb. They just went, feeling the water enveloping them and pressing them down, holding them tighter than even Luis had held them.

It was the first time Quinn had ever gone beneath the surface.

The first thing they noted was the darkness. Aside from the thin silver threads of moonlight, it was like swimming in ink; whether their eyes were closed or wide open didn't make a difference.

The second thing was the silence. It was so, so quiet. This far down, they couldn't hear the waves, couldn't hear the wind. It wasn't like the silence after they'd turned off the spirit box in the archive, heavy and ringing; it was an absence of sound so thorough Quinn felt like there had never been any noise to begin with, like this was the way the world was supposed to be. Something about that thought made Quinn's chest feel lighter.

As they floated through the pitch-black, a panicked little voice in the back of their head told them that they needed to get back to the surface, back to where there was oxygen. They knew the water would have parted around them just as easily as it had pushed them down if they wanted it to. They also knew, suddenly and with a bone-deep certainty, that it didn't have to.

The water belonged to them, just like they belonged to the water. They had what they needed.

After a few seconds, their feet touched the bottom of the lake. Quinn sank down, cross-legged, their eyes closed as they listened to the silence. Their heart was beating slower now, steady and alive. The water wasn't freezing anymore—instead, it felt like it had adjusted on their way down and was now just a little bit colder than their body temperature.

Quinn tilted their face up as it caressed their face, gentle and cool. Last time, they'd been too distracted by Luis to fully take in how it felt, but now, with their hands braced against the bottom of the lake, all their focus was on the water as it pulsed, ever so slightly, in time with their heartbeat. When they concentrated, they could sense exactly how far the lake stretched, could feel where it pressed against the earth that constrained it on all sides, could pinpoint the exact spot where it connected to the Murmuring River.

They let their magick expand even farther, following the river upstream, along its bends and curves, the places where it was narrow, roaring as it carved its way through the woods and crashed against boulders, and those where it was calmer, gliding smoothly over the stones in a wide riverbed.

Once they had followed the river to its spring, they felt their way through the dampness in the soil, down to the groundwater, tracing its thin veins and the hidden streams that wound blindly through the dark.

They reached and reached and reached, until, finally, a river opened into the Pacific. Quinn's heart ached with a strange mixture of fear and longing as they felt its vastness. It was so big they couldn't get a grasp on it, couldn't get their mind and magick to stretch far enough to comprehend its sheer size; all the life it harbored; all the countries and islands it surrounded; everything on its surface and everything it had buried beneath its crushing masses of blue.

Quinn knew they could have lost themself in it for hours, days, weeks, drowning their mind in the depths of the Horizon Deep or the Mariana Trench.

Luckily, they had a target.

Narrowing their focus again, they found the spot where the sea kissed the coast of East China. They found the access to the Yangtze, the Cháng Jiāng—the Long River. And then, finally, they found Nanjing.

An image washed over them as they followed one of the smaller rivers that branched from the Yangtze: a sun-dappled memory of them in their grandmother's garden, entranced by the narrow stream that passed through it as of their aunts led them towards it by their hand. Listen to it, their aunt had said. Maybe it will tell you of the sea.

Quinn didn't know if they had heard something in the rushing of the river then. What they could remember was that in all the other parts of town, the water had looked polluted and murky, but there, in the shade of the tall chestnut trees, it had been perfectly clear.

They tried to envision those same trees now, the flowers in the garden, the path that led up to the front door of the house. And then, once they felt the river growing clear and cool—as if the water could somehow breathe easier there—they called out to their family.

Quinn poured everything into it. The fear they'd felt when they'd first found out about their abilities. The bitter sense of loneliness when they'd realized that their family hadn't cared to teach them. The despair that grew every time another day passed and Vincent was still stuck here. Their anger at themself for not knowing how to do better, not having acted sooner, not being a better witch.

It was only once they'd drained themself of all their ugly emotions that they opened their eyes and came back to themself. They were still sitting at the bottom of the lake, just as silent and still as it had been earlier. The difference was that now, something inside of Quinn felt still as well. It was as if the water had taken the edge off of all the sharp things inside their chest and left them smoothed over, like a stone left in a riverbed. The grief was still there, still heavy, but at least for the moment, it didn't feel as liable to tear them apart from the inside.

Tilting their head back, Quinn squinted up at the faint fingers of light reaching through the surface. They couldn't remember why they'd ever been afraid of going into the water. At that moment, they felt like they could have spent the entire night at the bottom of the lake, enveloped in darkness and blissful silence.

If it hadn't been for the others, maybe they would have. But they knew there were still things to be done, and that now wasn't the time to fall apart. They owed it to them.

And so they got to their feet and pushed themself towards the surface, the water carrying them there faster than should have been physically possible. They emerged gasping, the crisp night air cold against their face and scratchy in their throat, the moonlight glaringly bright.

Near the lake, just next to the heap of clothes Quinn had haphazardly flung there, sat Vincent, his chin resting on one knee. He looked so much like he had that first night Quinn had seen him, fragile and forlorn, smiling at them in a way that was more gut-wrenching than any tears ever could have been.

The water carried Quinn towards him more than they actually swam. As they waded onto land, it pearled off of them in small rivulets, leaving them shivering but dry in the cold night air.

Neither of them said anything as Quinn pulled their sweater over their head. It was only once they were fully dressed and slumped into the grass next to Vincent that he met their eyes. "Feel better?"

"Yeah." Hugging their shins, Quinn rested their cheek on their knee and studied him. "What about you? Are you okay?"

Vincent thought about it for a heartbeat before he nodded. "I think so. I mean, I knew I died. It's just strange because... all these years, I was trying to remember how it happened. At some point, I just accepted that I was never going to find out, you know?"

"And now you did," Quinn murmured.

"Now I did," he softly agreed. He was looking out at the lake, expression unreadable, as one of his hands opened and closed his pocket watch over and over again.

Quinn's chest felt tight as they watched him grapple with the story of his own death. The face of the watch glinted in the moonlight, the time on it never changing: 3:52. He'd been found around 5 in the morning.

"It's not fair," Quinn said.

"Death rarely is. Then again, neither is life, is it?"

"I just—you deserved better." Raising their chin, they blinked up at the uncaring night sky to hold back their tears. "You didn't deserve to die just because your father went drinking that night. It's just so... so unnecessary. If he'd left you the keys, or if one of the neighbors had just looked out the window, if someone would've walked by sooner—"

"Quinn," Vincent gently said. "It doesn't matter."

Quinn wanted to object, but the lump in their throat was so big they could hardly breathe around it.

"I don't think it matters that it could have been avoided," Vincent said after a while, his voice as quiet as the wind whispering in the trees. "Death comes for each of us, one way or another. Does it really make a difference whether it was the grand finale of some divine plan or just a stupid accident?" He ran his thumb over the face of his pocket watch, the hands forever frozen in time, and added, "Humans always try to assign some big meaning to death, but maybe there just... is none. Maybe death is completely arbitrary and the only way in which it matters is that it gives life more meaning."

"What can nineteen years of life possibly mean?"

Vincent's lips curved into a small smile. Although it was still sad, there was something else in it—something that reminded Quinn of the quiet at the bottom of the lake, something that almost looked like peace. "I saved Rosie."

"Is that really what you think?" Quinn whispered. "That the entire purpose of your life was to die for her?"

"No," he said. "I think the purpose of life is to love."

If they could have, Quinn would have reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders to shake him. Instead, they looked away from him, their nails digging into their palms hard enough to hurt. "I hate that."

"What?"

"This. The way you always talk, like a goddamn martyr." They sharply shook their head. "You gave up your dream of becoming a writer to run your parents' shop. You gave Rosie your coat so she would survive. Even in the afterlife, you made sure we find artifacts for all the others even though you felt, the entire time, that we weren't going to find one for you. You're willing to simply watch them all cross over while you stay here and vanish. I just—" Quinn broke off, fighting down the frustrated sob that was trying to claw its way up their throat. Shakily, they finished, "I wish life could have taught you that love doesn't have to mean sacrifice. You deserve more than that."

"You already did," Vincent said, making Quinn look at him again. "Give me more than that, I mean."

"I didn't do enough."

"Yes, you did. You did more than than any of us could have ever asked for." Though his eyes were almost translucent at this point, his gaze was as steady as ever. "You keep calling me a martyr, but I'm not the only one with a tendency to give others everything they have in them. Even if it hurts. Even when it's already too late."

Quinn was silent for a long moment, staring out at the water. The sun was starting to rise, broad streaks of pink and orange putting the stars to sleep. At their feet, the lake shimmered like molten gold.

"I'm going to keep searching," they told him. "Until you're gone, I'm going to keep searching."

"Yeah." From the corner of their eye, they caught the soft smile that passed over Vincent's face. "I know."

Quinn shuffled a little, until they were sitting close enough to him to feel his chill seeping through their jacket. Breathing in the scent of morning dew, they watched together as day broke.

They had six sunrises left.