The Last Girl From Earth

ot fall. It remem

ysics. This was anti-physics. The crack in the Veil above the Pacific Ocean - a wound of pure black in th

To Theo, it was a tide of black glass. To Seraphine, it was a storm of dead stars. To Kael, who had be

lready eaten so much of history that it had forgotten wh

her. Not the city.

palm went from

old voice amplified by the city itself. "IT KNOWS

utopia for 183 years - suddenly remembered what fear was. Alarms that hadn't sounded in two centuries wailed. White and gol

They didn't explode. Th

Lyra's arm. "Mother, we have to ge

"The Gate is under the Pacific Trench. The original Hollow. Where The Silence first landed, mill

e lowered it, realizing how stupi

hread of light between their palms was now a

d her, low, so only she could

rough the ocean that was holding itsel

moment their circles touched, both flared, and the pain in Lyra

y thing that seemed to push the absence back a little. "If that thing touch

ful white ones, but a brutal, patched raider, his own ship. "This can get us to

l in orbit. It can drop a breach pod directly in

him. "You want to

" Kael said coldly. "Do you

f you, stop measuring! Darian, your ship

e in both hands. Her mot

hings - memories that are not yours, futures that never happened. It will try to make you forget wh

rs, at the matching circles, at his pale violet eyes that had gone from

ther, but to Kael. "My one true thi

eraphine's eyebrows shot up so hi

s of light falling.

Selene crammed inside, Theo shouting coordinates. Behind them, the inverted city raise

e Trench was fou

e glowing core beneath, and above that, the ocean, held back by fields. And above the ocean, through t

which she had never seen before - simply... stop. They didn't fall.

from Lyra's wrist, her voice glitching wit

ncept?!" Seraphine sh

eep her from being thrown as Darian piloted lik

ench a

floor so deep the light from the city above didn't reach i

ollow

sidian Moon and the Heart in Lyra's hand. In its center, there was no door. There was a swirling vortex of the same absence that was

failing. One had

is broken," Selene said, her voice weak.

of the Gate. The absence was here t

out, and th

ed to go home - and shot into the center of the vortex. The vortex flared, showing for a second not ab

born. Remembered her father, Dr. Elias Vale, a kind man with tired eyes, placing her in

ST

Lyra whispered. "You m

way to hide you from it. If you remember

e edge of the Gate, staring at the v

close it from within," Selene said. "He never came out.

'd heard since she was six - had been her fat

ore she could step fo

it from the inside means

has to,"

ill be me,

and Darian said

wing circles on their palms aligned, and for a second, Lyra felt his thoughts - not

an take the Sovereign's place in the Gate. My Aureli percentage is lower, but it's there -

. "You'd do that? You'd stay in ther

e she'd met him. "I was ordered to kill you yesterday. To

this, his gun forgotten, said

aught. But I know that when you are in pain, I feel it in my own chest, an

t was half sob, half

, in front of her mother and brother and his sister, on the ed

er back like

Oh for - we are about to be eaten b

iolently. A second

sky had reached the

of the Gate, into a shape almos

d ever forgotten - her own baby babble, her mot

ITTLE DOOR. YOU WE

e the kis

el. At her mothe

de her

ael in. She didn'

sed their matching circles together, a

!" she shouted at The Silence a

d. Darian screame

hand, as it snapped shut behind them like a mou

hird pillar