Everything in the Underworld feels gray. Muted. Like the worst part of a depressive episode, when color and feeling leach out of the world, leaving only hollow objects behind.

The hot chocolate in my hands should warm me, but the heat feels distant—more memory than sensation. I stare into its dull surface, seeing my reflection: tired eyes, short hair I barely recognize, a face that's seen too much pain and not enough joy.

"What did I do?" My voice cracks, hands shaking. I've faced gods and monsters, watched friends die and worlds crumble, but none of that prepared me for this endless gray emptiness.

Penny sits across from me, that infuriatingly patient expression on his face—the same look therapists get when they think they've看透 you. "What do you think you did?"

The question hangs in the air, heavy with all the regrets I've carried for years. "This is the part where I can't lie, right? Where my whole life is laid bare?"

"It only matters if it's revealed to yourself."

Bullshit. The Library always collects everything. I握紧 the mug, feeling the ceramic press against my palms. Is Eliot alive? Did Alice and 23 make it out of the mirror world? Did any of it matter? Did my death actually save anyone, or just break more things I'll never get to fix?

"I can see we're going to need the deluxe package." Penny stands, gesturing toward a door at the end of a long hallway. "You need to find the answers for yourself."

The corridor stretches before me, impossibly long, the door at the end nothing but a black smudge against the gray. I've died before—forty times by my count—but this feels different. More final. More empty.

"If you make me watch my own funeral, I'm going to haunt you," I call back, but he just raises an eyebrow.

"Just go through the door, Coldwater."

I take a step forward, then another, my footsteps echoing in the endless space. With each step, the weight of all my failures presses down harder. I never got to say goodbye to Julia. Or Margo. Or—

Eliot.

God, I hope he's alive. My life for his might be a fair trade, except... except if he's dead, maybe I'll see him again. The thought makes me physically sick, and I double over, gasping for air. Months of trying to keep his body alive when the Monster inhabited him, and now this? I don't want him dead. I just—

Never got to see him again.

I straighten, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "This sucks!" I yell into the empty expanse. "Was the whole point of this just to make me be alone with my thoughts?"

No one answers, of course. The Library has always loved its dramatic silences.

At the door now, I hesitate, my hand hovering over the cool surface. Whatever's on the other side could be worse than this endless gray. But what choice do I have? Staying here means accepting that this is how my story ends—unfinished, unresolved, filled with regret.

I push the door open.