Page 146 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

“We messed up so many steps,” Lilibeth added. “The blooms almost didn’t rise.”

“They did, though,” Cassia murmured. “In the end.”

She let her boots fall away and stepped barefoot onto the sand. Cold. Grounding. The wind tugged at her coat like a hand pulling her gently back into time.

Opalina glanced over. “I can’t believe that was five years ago.”

Cassia knelt to anchor one of the blankets. “My mother said drinking it gave her strength to last another day. Let her sleep after nights of pain and no rest.”

It didn’t save Celestia, but it gave her peace—and a painless passing.

She hoped the blue algae would bloom again tonight, for Ark’s father.

Together, they began to set up camp. Blankets were spread. Candles anchored in glass jars. The kettle placed over the steady hiss of a travel flame. Everything unfolded like muscle memory.

Like faith.

The wind picked up as the sun dipped lower, turning gold to indigo at the horizon. Long shadows stretched over the beach, and the hush of the sea deepened.

Cassia rose slowly, brushing the sand from her palms. She walked to the blanket where the supplies lay and crouched by the fire pit. Lilibeth brought the copper kettle closer. The scent of an herb bouquet steeping in seawater rose with the steam—earthy and briny. Opalina placed stones in a wide circle around the firepit, then set the candles between them. Their placement followed the pattern drawn in the back pages of her mother’s notebook: north for endurance, south for sacrifice, east for clarity, west for return.

As darkness took the sky, Cassia lit the first candle. Its small flame flared, then steadied, casting a pool of golden light dancing in the hollows of their faces. One by one, the others followed, and with each lit wick, a hush settled over them.

They sat close around the fire. Cassia unfolded the flower petals she’d picked from her garden, piling them into a small porcelain dish warmed by the kettle’s edge. She pressed a moonstone into her palm, letting it absorb the heat of her skin. When it warmed fully, she laid it at the centre of the stone circle.

And then, the last part—the token.

From her coat pocket, she drew a small pouch. Inside it: Ark’s father’s gold cufflink. She’d picked it up and intended to return it that evening in the conservatory, but then Delphyne came, and the cufflink was forgotten.

And now . . . now it felt like more than an accident. It felt like a thread the universe had given her to follow.

Cassia placed it on the moonstone and whispered something only Thaloriel was meant to hear:

O tide that keeps what light forgets,

Where moonlight weeps and shadow sets⁠—

I offer threads and clover’s breath,

To call thee, bloom, from ocean’s depth.

Come forth, aglow, O ancient balm,

To mend the heart, to bring him calm.

Let silver roots through silence grow⁠—

And rise, blue light, from deep below.

These were words she hadn’t spoken in half a decade, yet they returned to her easily. For a moment, it seemed almost as though her mother was standing beside her, reciting the same ancient words. Lilibeth and Opalina joined on the third line, their voices weaving in and out like overlapping tides. The sea, just beyond the shore, whispered back. The flames flickered. A shimmer passed across the sand—barely there—and the tide inched closer.

They kept chanting, voices low, no louder than breath. The water crept toward them, curling around their ankles, icy cold. It reached the moonstone first, then lapped at the bowl, the bundled herbs, the flower petals. The cufflink vanished beneath the surface with barely a ripple, as if claimed by something unseen.

Then the sea reached the fire. With a final hiss, the flames died. Darkness fell. No sound remained but the steady pulse of the waves and the quiet gurgle of receding water. The three of them inhaled sharply, instinctively holding their breath. The moon, no longer veiled by clouds, cast a broad silver path across the ocean, illuminating their faces.

Cassia kept praying—not aloud now, but in the raw language of memory and hope. To the sea goddess. To her mother, her father. To anyone still listening. Her eyes stayed fixed on the foaming line of the tide. Lilibeth and Opalina stood beside her, equally still.

And then, finally⁠—