The roar of water was the first thing Xanthy registered as soon as the sirtya dropped them out of its influence. She opened her eyes to a subterranean cavern that reminded her of Kamharaim that for a second she thought she was back at the Pilgrim Road even though Cirasa said it's in Avalora.

"Come on," Cirasa edged his way across the slippery rocks covered in gray-green alga. "It's this way."

Xanthy craned her neck towards a domed ceiling peppered with inverted towers of sepia stalactites. "How do you even know it's in here?" She stalked after Cirasa who leaped from mould to mould without falling into the carpet of cerulean water around them. "What's the Witch's Fall?"

"It's a well of knowledge," Cirasa braced the rough wall and glanced at the wall of water raging from a crevice in the wall to Xanthy's right. "I knew of it in several literature, both ancient and contemporary," he paused. "It's also one of the places I visited when I'm searching for answers about my... sickness."

Xanthy took a deep breath and the smell of earth filled her nose. The dim light perpetuated by the thousands of flowers and leaves glowing on their own was their only way of seeing what was ahead. "Did you find any?" she asked.

Cirasa hopped from the last rock and landed on a flat ground that seemed to lead to a neighboring cavern. "The guardian won't tell me."

"Guardian?" Xanthy's boots slapped the moist ground and almost knocked Cirasa over had the shard fairy not caught her in time. Curse this slippery thing.

"It's a spirit left behind by Pelrise," Cirasa's voice strained over the roar of the waterfall which seemed to strengthen due to them being almost level with its basin. "It's impossible to talk to it properly."

Xanthy cleared her throat as she pushed away from Cirasa. "How so?"

Cirasa sighed. "You'll see."

Together, they entered the subsequent cavern and a heavy, flowery smell hit Xanthy's nose. There was no wind blowing around but her skin prickled with the cold air. Her boots crunched against a fine layer of grass as they came into an elevated platform that led down to a lagoon with still, turquoise water.

Cirasa trudged to the edge of the elevation and began tackling a strip of flat rocks that cascaded down towards the lagoon. Xanthy sucked in a lungful of the freshest air she ever encountered and ran after the shard fairy. Then, they stopped at the height where they could jump off without breaking anything. Xanthy glanced at Cirasa and nodded. She launched into the air.

Her boots hit the solid floor as her knees folded to take the brunt of the impact. She pushed her hair off her face, straightening to survey the space for any danger. Apart from the flowers with bunching pink buds growing in abundance between the cracks on the rocks and at the number of trees with bright, lilac leaves dropping down in long, spindly arms, there was nothing.

Then, Cirasa approached the end banks of the lagoon and tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe. When Xanthy caught up to him, her eyes landed on a pedestal in the middle of the lagoon that resembled Acosa in the dead center of a chasm. Only this time, instead of a palace, the pedestal contained a...klaire fruit.

Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. Its leathery blue shell shone in contrast with the turquoise around it and it lay there like it belonged. Without being connected to a vine or a branch, how was it able to survive without wilting? She whirled to Cirasa. "What is this?"

Cirasa opened his mouth. "THIS!" came the screeching reply from behind Xanthy. She whirled to the pedestal just in time to see the klaire fruit straighten. Her breath hitched. "THIS IS THE FOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE, INSOLENT GIRL."

The voice that sounded like a child on oshella echoed against the walls and the water only made it louder than Xanthy needed it to be. Her ears rang as she tried calming her heart down. It's just a fruit. It's not even edible. Besides, she didn't know which sentiment to react to—the fact that a fruit was talking to her or that it called her an insolent girl.

She crossed her arms and blew a shaky breath. Play along. No matter how absurd this was. She sidestepped Cirasa and leaned over the water. "I'm not talking to you, idiot," she said. "Don't go around butting into people's conversations when you're not even part of it."

The klaire fruit made gasping sound as if offended. "Pelrise did not put me here to be insulted by some girl who clearly needs my help!"

"What can you do?" Xanthy scoffed. "You're just a talking klaire fruit."

"And you," the voice of the fruit hissed as it quivered from its pedestal. As if it's really angry. This was ridiculous. Why was Xanthy wasting time with this? "You wouldn't even know how to use the chalice if you ever get it!"

Xanthy narrowed her eyes. "When I get it!" she turned away before an idea struck. Of course, she had to bait it into telling her what to do in this place. She made a show of sighing and before she turned back to the lagoon, she winked at Cirasa. "I don't even know where the rest of the places are."

"Why should I tell you?" the klaire fruit snorted as if it really could. "You don't even have my master's crest."

Xanthy smirked. There they go. She uncrossed her arms and let it fall to her side "Crest?"

"Lalala, I'm not telling you!" the banana hummed before snickering in a tone that sounded like nails grating against a wooden board. "Oh look at you, little girl, already red in the face."

Blood rushed into Xanthy's cheeks. "You don't even have eyes. If I'm red, then you're blue!" This...this was more insolent than she ever was.

"Of course I am!" it said. "I'm a klaire fruit!"

Xanthy clenched her fist. She didn't have time for this...childish ploys. "A good thing you know how much a piece of lint you are."

The klaire fruit drew back with a fake gasp. "Piece of lint?" it drew forward as a loud voice erupted around the cavern. "I am THE LINT!"

Xanthy winced and covered her ears. "Why are you shouting?" she said. "It's annoying."

"You're more annoying!" The klaire fruit harrumphed. "Disturbing my sleep and asking me stupid questions."

Xanthy opened her mouth when Cirasa stepped in between her and the lagoon. "What are you doing?" his tone was stern.

She leaned to the side and wagged a finger at the water. "That fruit's infuriating," she stuck her bottom lip out. "Can I smash it?"

"No," Cirasa clawed at this scalp. "That's the guardian!"

Xanthy slammed a closed fist against her other palm. "Then if we smash it we get the thing, right?"

Cirasa massaged his temples. "That's not what we're looking for," he waved a hand at the water behind him. "This is the fountain of knowledge. Figure it out."

She rolled her eyes. Fine. It's time to take this seriously, anyway. "It did tell us that we need to have Pelrise's crest," she stepped back. "Unless you know what that is, we're sitting manwaris here."

"You're right," Cirasa slapped his forehead. "Pelrise's crest..." he began pacing before stalking back to her. "Can I see the other items?"

Xanthy rummaged around the satchel the shepherd family gave her and drew the locket, the amulet, the seed, and the horn. She plucked the ring off her finger after she and Cirasa agreed for her to wear it in order to not accidentally drop it somewhere. She dumped the items in Cirasa's arms. "There you go."

"Okay," Cirasa blew a breath and held each object to his eyes. After a while, his shoulders slumped. "It's not here."

"Where did you see it last?" she asked before dropping her voice a few notches lower and drawing closer to his ear. "Have you seen it?"

Cirasa crossed his arms. "Of course, I've seen it," he tousled his hair more violently than necessary. "All I remember is that there is some sort of flower on it."

"Carquet flowers?"

"They're Rafaline's," Cirasa looked at Xanthy like she had just grown a pair of wings at that moment. "We're looking for Pelrise's."

Xanthy glanced at the bunches of pink flowers flourishing around them and filling the room with its flowery scent. "How about those?"

"No, that's too obvious," Cirasa resumed his pacing and propped his twined hands atop his hair.

"Could be worth a try," Xanthy reasoned. She strode towards the nearest bunch and plucked a flower. She put it in her hair and began waving her arms, dancing around to non-existent music. A strangled laugh tore from her lips. It had been a while since she allowed herself to be silly and it...felt good, somehow.

"Stop that. It's hideous," the klaire fruit taunted from its pedestal. If it could frown and shake its head, it probably would have. "And, wrong answer. The Seros Crest is not these flowers."

"Can we just randomly shout flower names and tell us we're right?" Xanthy stuck its tongue at the fruit.

The klaire fruit was unimpressed judging from the flat tone that rang across the cavern. "No. That's a new kind of stupidity from you, miss."

Xanthy wrinkled her nose then glared at the pedestal. She faced Cirasa after plucking the pink flower off her hair and smashing it under her feet. "Any ideas?"

"Pelrise grew up in Narfalk," Cirasa strode to the edge of the lagoon. "Orostaches?"

The klaire fruit chuckled. "It's a good thing you're travelling with a thinking lad," it jeered at Xanthy before referring to Cirasa with a turn. "Nice reasoning but no."

Cirasa exhaled. "Something..." he jabbed a finger in the air as he continued pacing by the lagoon's lip. "His family is in the upper nobility. So something most nobles are fond of. Iglimfire? Edross?"

"No and no," the klaire fruit giggled. Oh, it's enjoying this. Xanthy's fists clenched. How much longer before she could punch its shell of its stem? "How dare you associate those hideous things to him."

Xanthy waved her arms in a frantic gesture. "How about klaire flowers?".

A stringent snort rang from the pedestal. "I don't have flowers," the fruit said.

Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. "I'm pretty sure you do. Before you become that infernal blue thing, you're just a gray flower."

Cirasa snapped his fingers, startling Xanthy. "I know!" he turned to the lagoon with a wide smile on his face. "Sempervivium!"

"The weed?" Xanthy raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Pelrise is known to favor things without value. Sempervivum is one of those things."

The klaire fruit didn't object or say rude things. In fact, it had fallen quiet. The sudden absence of the booming voice made Xanthy aware of just how big this cavern was and how plain the walls were. Xanthy hummed the verses of the song to herself. "How do we 'bear' it though?" She glanced at the flowers flourishing around and spotted no sempervivum bushes among them. "It's not like there's a bunch of them here."

Cirasa jerked his chin at the lagoon. "We need to draw it with the water, I think."

Xanthy blinked. "What?"

"The poem talks about forgetting in a sea of time."

Xanthy circled a finger in the air as she rapidly hummed the verses to herself. She frowned. "Yeah, but that's in the king's cross and not here," she jerked her thumb into a vague direction behind her as if wherever the King's Cross was was there.

"The King's Cross doesn't exist," the klaire fruit's voice made Xanthy flinch. Didn't that lint shut up already? "Not anymore."

She faced the pedestal when what it said clicked. "Then the key there..."

"It's gone," the klaire fruit said in a grave tone. "Forever."

Xanthy clenched her jaw. That's not good. What would happen to the chalice and to Desara as a consequence to that? She turned to Cirasa. "So, the clue to the King's Cross gets transferred here?"

Cirasa shrugged. "Worth a try."

Xanthy stepped back as Cirasa crouched and dipped his finger into the lagoon. He began tracing a hazy figure of a sempervivum flower on the dry ground. Within a few minutes, Cirasa drew up and wiped his finger against the hem of his robe. They both peered down at the water sketch and back at the pedestal. Nothing magical happened. She knitted her eyebrows. Did they do it wrong?

Light shimmered from the klaire's pedestal. The fruit bucked and blinked in and out of existence. Xanthy squinted at the ray of light burning brighter inside the cavern every second that passed. What was happening?

Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the light died. Xanthy blinked the dark spots in her vision to find a grown man seated on the pedestal on the klaire's place. A faint green tinge shone from his semi-transparent skin. That's...

A spirit. It took Xanthy back to the days she spent in the Temple of Souls. She frowned. How come he's not in the Land of Wonders?

"Hello," the spirit opened its hollow eyes and smiled. "I am Pelrise."

Cirasa pushed past Xanthy. "What are you doing here? You should be dead!"

Pelrise smiled, staring at nothing. "It's nice isn't it?" he swayed gently with his hands tucked between his thighs. He hummed a silly tune as he kicked his legs in the air. "The fruit becoming a grown man. The grown man becoming a fruit."

Xanthy blinked. "Uh..."

"Don't answer that," Cirasa sighed.

Xanthy turned back to Pelrise and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "What now?"

"Now, I'll tell you what happens," the spirit pointed to the lagoon. "Gather some water from the pool of knowledge."

Okay. That seemed easy enough. Xanthy crouched and propped her satchel atop her thighs. With a quick rummage, she fished a waterskin out. Her heart twinged at the kindness and thoughtfulness of that family. May the gods bless them. Water sloshed inside when she gave it a little shake. A sigh escaped her lips as she uncapped the skin and upended it on a bunch of flowers. So much for having enough water for the rest of this journey.

Following Pelrise's order, she lowered the skin into the pool. She let it fill halfway before drawing it out. The spirit approved with a silent nod. She chewed on her lip. How did he even become that rude fruit? The real Pelrise sounded so nice!

The spirit jerked his head to the skin. "Use that to fill the chalice then chant the spell..." he began rattling off a bunch of ancient words, too fast for Xanthy to catch. Pelrise finished and smirked. "Or you could just say Cleanse."

"You could've just said that," she said even though her lips tugged into a slight smile. "Saves you the saliva."

"I'm a dead man," Pelrise's eyes twinkled. "I have no saliva."

A small laugh rose from Xanthy's chest. She tamped it down before it could become more. "Continue."

Pelrise crossed his legs even though the pedestal didn't even cover all of his rear. How was he balancing on that? "Make the person drink the water from the chalice and prepare for your own to be taken," he said.

A stone of dread dropped in Xanthy's gut. This was it. She was getting closer to it. "Where do souls go after being taken by the chalice?" she asked before snorting. Would she even back out when she's already knee-deep in it?

"No one knows," Pelrise said. A flash of sadness passed across his hollow eyes and his stiff features. "I don't intend to find out."

Xanthy scratched her scalp. "Why did you hide it in the first place?"

"It's a tough time for the island," Pelrise said. "We don't need another thing to fight over. We lost a great many of our brethren and we did things we will forever regret. The chalice cleanses all that. It cleanses the guilt, the conscience, and the soul. It's the perfect tool for the Dwarves to win."

Xanthy licked her lips. "That war," she raised her eyes to meet Pelrise's. "Did it end well?"

Pelrise's hollow eyes were warmer than a number of eyes Xanthy had seen in living people. "Only you can answer that for yourself," he smiled. "Just like how the next generation would about the war that you would soon be facing. The cycle goes on until the next generation doesn't come."

"How do you know about the coming war?" Xanthy narrowed her eyes.

"Rutoria did give me a clue."

Xanthy's saliva went the wrong way from her throat. "Ru—wow," she hacked, clearing the lump forming inside it. "She's that old?"

"She's paying a price she shouldn't have paid," Pelrise nodded. "She helped me hide the chalice. She told me that it will be important in the future, that it would be the one that will decide the fate of the world."

"Yeah, right," Xanthy scoffed. "What happened to the piece in the King's Cross? What are these items that we keep finding?"

Pelrise grinned. "It's the chalice. I divided their power and embedded it into those objects. Built myself a pretty little puzzle after that. That one song I wrote about my wife, pretty clever, eh?"

Xanthy scratched her nose. "Uh, it will do."

"The one in Jatoma disappeared after the Humans took over," Pelrise picked at the hem of his spiritual tunic before holding up three fingers. "It's too late to change the song since first, I am dead. Second, it has become an island-wide sensation. Third, I can't leave this place."

"How does that affect the chalice?"

Pelrise held up two fingers this time. "You can only use it twice. It's an incomplete throne so it won't be in its strongest might. I'm sorry."

"I only need to use it once so that's enough," Xanthy's gut twisted. "Will it kill the water sprites if those two chances get used?"

Pelrise put his hands together. "I think not. Desara is weakened because of its separation from its throne. They're disconnected enough that as long as the chalice isn't destroyed, they wouldn't fade away."

Xanthy turned to Cirasa who listened to the whole exchange with nothing but his lips pursed. "So we go straight to Gulstead?"

Pelrise stood from the pedestal. "Tell my wife 'I love you' for me," he dipped his head in Xanthy's direction. When he straightened, a sad smile was plastered on his translucent face. "Remind her of my promise."

Xanthy's heart wrenched. Would she be able to do it? Well, she better. She met the spirit's eyes. "I will."

"Then, I can say that I'm free," Pelrise chuckled as he turned to Cirasa. "That's another clue I hid in my song. Clever, right? I am free."

Then, in a flash of green and blue, Pelrise was gone. Xanthy glanced at the pedestal expecting to find a rude klaire fruit atop it. There's nothing. All that's left was a turquoise lagoon, a roaring water fall behind them, and one last place to visit before the hunt ends and the chalice reveals itself.

Xanthy and Cirasa made it out of the first cavern and into the other one with the waterfall. Her time is slowly coming to pass. She's ready, right? So why did it feel like she wanted to hurl? She glanced at the walls and at the waterfall gurgling in front of her. Would there be nature inside the chalice?

A heavy sigh ripped off her chest. She fished the sirtya from her pocket and smiled at Cirasa. "Let's rest for a while. My head's starting to ache," she closed her fist around the crystal when the shard fairy nodded at her suggestion. "We go tomorrow."

To the final place.