There was a small courtyard of grey marble, and standing in the centre was a tree, looking as dead as the city surrounding it. Its twisted alabaster trunk was more than ten feet wide and stood over fifty feet high, with a web of empty branches that reached toward the sky with skeletal fingers. The twisting roots hadn't cracked and shattered the pavement like one would expect, but rather they had pushed it out of the way, the stone seemingly accommodating the tree's growth. An empty pool bordered the tree's side, and Twilight could see the roots spilling out into the parched basin.