The letter sat on the kitchen table like a wound that wouldn't close.
Caleb had read it a dozen times, each pass revealing nothing new and everything terrible. The handwriting was Elias Voss's—of that he was certain. He had spent too many hours poring over the man's notes, the hidden messages, the confession left behind in the ruins of the Spire, to mistake the tight, controlled script. But Elias was dead. His body had been recovered from the harbor, identified by dental records, buried in an unmarked grave at his own request. The man who had written this letter was either a ghost or something worse.
The team gathered around the table, their faces drawn and pale in the grey morning light. The warmth of the previous night—the laughter, the music, the sense of peace—had evaporated like fro
