“I thought about my fears,” she said. “How every day I woke up in the west I was afraid. I think because I often felt like a stranger. Like I was losing myself or forgetting who I was. And so I come here to swim in the warm darkness, even though it terrified me, and I tell myself, If I go deep enough, far enough, I will eventually find the edge of it. I will find the end.”
Adaira paused, rolling her lips together. Water beaded on her face, gleaming like small gemstones. “I would find the end of my fear or finally claim it and turn it into something else. But I discovered that I could swim to the edge of the mortal realm and still be afraid.”