The Atlantic was a graveyard of restless water, a churning grey expanse that felt like the edge of the known world. They were three hundred miles west of the Azores, cutting through swells that tossed the *Aletheia II* like a splinter. Here, the tectonic plates of the Earth ground against one another, and the deep-sea vents hissed with a heat that never reached the surface.
Lila stood in the galley, her hands trembling as she held the photo from the London masquerade. The girl in the window, the girl with the amber eyes, seemed to stare through the glossy paper, through the decades of lies, and straight into Lila’s soul.
"My father told me she died of a congenital heart defect when she was four," Ethan said, his voice low and jagged. He was leaning over the navigation table, his eyes fix
