The green lights followed the Endurance like patient wolves.
Elias stood at the stern rail, his hands wrapped around the cold metal, staring into the black water. The ship's wake churned, but beneath the foam, a faint phosphorescent trail pulsed with that sickly green he had come to hate. Not attacking. Not retreating. Just waiting.
He felt it in his chest—the door. Not the Silence, but something worse. A cold, hollow space that the Severance had carved into him, a wound that refused to close. The children's light held it shut, but their strength was finite. And the deep knew it.
"You should be resting." Lyra's voice came from behind him, soft but insistent. She stepped up beside him, her small hands resting on the rail. Her face was pale, but her eyes were clear.
"Can't sleep," Elias
