Ryan stood in the garden, staring at the spot where the door of nothing had been.
The twilight woman and the void shadow were gone. Their sacrifice had sealed the Old Ones, but the emptiness they left behind was vast. The garden felt smaller, quieter, as if the light had dimmed in their absence.
Mira appeared beside him, her silver eyes soft. "Dada, are you okay?"
Ryan looked at his daughter. She was older now—not in years, but in presence. The weight of the doors, the echoes, the shadows—she carried it all with a grace that humbled him.
"I'm fine," he said. "I just miss them."
Mira touched his hand. "They're not gone. They're part of the web now. I can feel them."
Ryan looked at the sky. A new star had appeared—not in the heavens, but in the web. A point of light that pulsed gently,
