Thelxiepe soared high above the moonlit sea, her wings slicing cleanly through the salt-laced wind. Below her, the ocean shimmered like a living mirror, its surface broken only by the graceful movements of her sisters as they patrolled the coastline.

She banked southward first, spotting Peisinoe cutting through the surf like a sea serpent, her dark hair trailing in the current. Thelxiepe dipped low, matching her pace for a moment. “Anything?” she called over the wind.

Peisinoe gave a tight shake of her head before diving beneath a cresting wave, disappearing in a trail of foam.

Without pause, Thelxiepe veered eastward, her wings beating harder as she closed the distance to Thlaspi, who was darting between jagged rock formations just off the coast. Thelxiepe called out again, her voice quick and clipped.

Thlaspi surfaced just long enough to reply, “No disturbances—not even a stray ripple,” before diving back into the churning tide.

She turned inland briefly, scanning the curve of the island, then angled west toward a deeper reef, where Pisinoe hovered beyond the breakers, ever watchful. Thelxiepe descended, skimming just above the waves.

Pisinoe looked up, her expression tight. “We’ve covered the entire southern curve,” she said. “If something’s here, it isn’t moving through the water.”

Thelxiepe’s wings twitched with unease as she rose again, circling high above the dark, glittering ocean—alone in the sky.

She turned and began to veer inland when a sudden shift in the wind caught her attention—Parthenope and Molpe, slicing through the starlight like silvered comets.

They flew straight toward her, urgency in every beat of their wings. Thelxiepe banked into their path, hovering just above the waves as they reached her.

“We have news from Aglaope,” Parthenope said, breath quick with exertion.

Thelxiepe’s wings tensed as Molpe relayed Aglaope’s theory.

“A concealment spell,” she said. “That would explain more than I’d like.”

Parthenope hovered nearby, her wings beating in slow, steady pulses to keep her aloft. “Does that theory change anything?” she asked. “Anything you might’ve overlooked during the sweep?”

Thelxiepe shook her head at first, her eyes scanning the coastline again with renewed scrutiny. “No,” she said, her voice clipped. “Nothing felt—”

She stopped.

A current of thought rippled through her. A crease formed between her eyes, and her wings faltered for half a beat.

“Wait,” she said slowly. “There might be something.”

“I was thinking more like… drunk in an alley.”

Leucosia scoffed.

Not loud—just a short, breathy sound that barely escaped her nose. She turned from Antioch without a word, her dark silhouette gliding back to the altar, blade still gleaming in her hand like a promise unspoken.

Antioch watched her go. The cords bit into his skin when he shifted, but he barely noticed. He wasn’t worried about pain. Not yet.

Not even about death.

What troubled him, if anything, was the timing.

How long could he hold the charade?

He had slipped into the role of Finnegan with the ease of a well-worn costume—gruff voice, creaky joints, sailor’s scowl. A part to play. A face to wear. But the stakes beneath that mask were no longer just theatrical.

Would he let her do it?

Drive the knife through his chest. Complete the vision that wasn’t his.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d “died” for answers. Theatrics like that had bought him time before—loyalty, leverage, clarity. Sometimes even love. Death was an excellent tool if you knew how to return from it.

But this time… there were no guarantees.

Leucosia had changed. He didn’t recognize this daughter—not fully. She didn’t burn wild like her sisters. She simmered cold, calculated, patient. Dangerous.

She wouldn’t hesitate.

Antioch closed his eyes for a moment, letting the scent of salt and ash wash over him. The cords at his wrists pulsed faintly—enchanted, no doubt. Designed to hold more than flesh. He tested their limits again, gently. Not to escape.

Just to know.

The sky above didn’t shift. The stars held still in their false dome. The whole cove thrummed with a rising pressure, like breath being held before the scream.

Antioch opened his eyes again and smiled faintly to himself.

Well. If this was how it ended…

At least it would be something new.

Lapham was moving steadily through the water, her strokes smooth and practiced as she traced the contours of the jagged shoreline. She swam just below the surface, eyes examining the rocks and tidal inlets for anything out of place.

She broke the surface with a sharp breath as the current stilled around her. A shadow passed overhead—then another. She looked up to see Thelxiepe descending toward the cliffs, Parthenope and Molpe flanking her on either side.

“Thelxiepe,” she called, treading water as the three landed on a high ledge overlooking the cove.

Thelxiepe stepped to the edge. “Lapham—come up.”

Lapham swam to the rocks and hoisted herself onto the lower ledge, water streaming from her fins as she caught her breath. She ran a hand through her soaked hair and looked up to where Thelxiepe stood, wings half-furled and gaze sharp.

Thelxiepe stepped closer to the edge, her eyes fixed not on Lapham, but on the dark stretch of coastline beyond.

“That cove,” she said quietly. “The one just past the southern bend—the one with the split stone entrance. You searched it earlier?”

Lapham nodded. “Thoroughly.”

Thelxiepe’s eyes dropped to meet hers. “Tell me again. Exactly what you found.”

Lapham gave a short exhale, resting her palms on the stone beside her. “It looked normal. Calm. The tide was unusually still, but not in a way that seemed strange at the time. The water was clear, but the whole place felt... undisturbed. No debris, no noise, no movement—not even birds nesting in the cliffs. I assumed it was just a quiet pocket in the current. I swam the full length, checked the cliff wall and the inlet. Nothing caught my eye.”

Thelxiepe nodded slowly but didn’t speak.

Parthenope broke the silence first. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was too normal.”

Lapham frowned, glancing between them. “You think I missed something?”

“No,” Thelxiepe said. “I think it’s designed to be missed.”

She stepped away from the ledge, her voice low and certain. “Let’s take a closer look at that cove.”

And with that, they launched into motion—one into the water, three into the sky—drawn southward toward the place that was too quiet, and no longer willing to be ignored.

Selene shifted slightly in her circle, the sand cool beneath her knees and buzzing with energy. Her eyes swept across the cove with growing unease.
They were everywhere—sigils.

Etched into rocks. Pressed into the sand. Carved into the trunks of trees just beyond the torchlight. What she had thought were mere weathered grooves or tangled roots were, in truth, markings—symbols older than language. Some were familiar, protective runes she had seen in half-forgotten temples or in the margins of forbidden books. Others were stranger—circular, recursive, spiraling in on themselves like traps designed to ensnare the soul rather than the body.

They glowed faintly now, as if the ritual had awakened them.

It wasn’t just the two circles, or even the altar’s perimeter.

This whole cove was a sigil.

A massive one.

She glanced toward the sea, where the tide lapped innocently against the shore.

Selene’s gaze lifted from the sand to the sky.

At first glance, it was beautiful: a vast canvas of stars glinting across a velvet backdrop, the moon bright and full, casting everything in its silvery glow. But as she stared longer, a ripple of wrongness passed through her spine.

The sky didn’t move.

There was no breeze, no shift in the clouds, no gentle twinkling of stars. It hung there—still. Unchanging. Perfect.

Too perfect.

It looked painted.

Not quite flat, not quite three-dimensional. As though the heavens had been drawn by an artist who knew the form of night but not its breath. The stars were arranged just a little too neatly. The moon, slightly too luminous. The clouds, frozen like brushstrokes suspended in time.

She tilted her head and caught it—a shimmer, just at the horizon. Like light bending across glass.

A concealed dome.

That was the truth of it.

This wasn’t just a ritual site—it was a cage. A veil. A hidden chamber tucked away from the gods, the stars, the watching world.

The moon had climbed higher by the time Thelxiepe and her sisters reached the cove. It lay nestled between two craggy outcrops of black stone, its entrance narrow and veiled in shadow. The water lapping at its mouth was glass-smooth, almost unnaturally still, reflecting the stars without so much as a ripple.

Thelxiepe landed softly on a ledge above the inlet, wings folding in with a slow rustle. Parthenope and Molpe touched down beside her, while Lapham glided through the water below, circling once before floating just offshore.

“There,” Thelxiepe said, pointing to the mouth of the cove. “One more time. Look again. Take your time.”

Lapham didn’t question her. She nodded, took a breath, and dove beneath the surface.

She moved with precision, cutting through the water as she slipped into the cove’s stillness. For a moment, all was quiet. The moonlight above fragmented into beams that danced faintly across the stone walls, but nothing stirred. No movement. No resistance. No sensation of presence.

She drifted deeper into the cove, eyes scanning every ridge, every hollow in the rock—but her focus began to blur. Her strokes slowed. Her thoughts... drifted.

A strange calm settled over her.

Lapham blinked once beneath the water, then again, her gaze growing vague. Her limbs stilled. Something in her chest felt heavy—but not from exertion. Not from fear. From forgetting.

She turned slowly, almost languidly, and swam back out through the mouth of the cove, as if guided not by decision but by instinct.

When she surfaced near the ledge, Thelxiepe was already leaning down to meet her.

“Well?” Thelxiepe asked, tension held tightly in her voice.

Lapham brushed a hand across her face and took a breath. “I... swam through again,” she said slowly. “Same as before. Nothing. Just quiet.”

Thelxiepe’s eyes narrowed. “You hesitated. You stopped inside.”

Lapham blinked. “Did I?” Her brow furrowed, genuinely uncertain. “It didn’t feel like I did.”

Parthenope stepped forward. “That place is masked. It’s not just cloaked from sight—it’s softening memory.”

Thelxiepe didn’t answer right away. She stared down into the cove. A muscle tensed in her jaw, then released.

“We can’t rely on what we see anymore,” she said quietly. “Or what we remember.”

She straightened and turned toward Molpe. “Find Peisinoe, Thlaspi, and Pisinoe. Pull them from the water and bring them here.”

Molpe gave a sharp nod. “On it.” With a sweep of her wings, she launched herself into the air and veered out over the sea, already gaining altitude.

Thelxiepe turned next to Parthenope. “You need to find Aglaope. Corilato and Arrieciane too.”

Parthenope’s eyes flashed with understanding. “I’ll bring them.” She was airborne before the last word finished, her form slicing through the starlight like a blade of light.

Thelxiepe watched them go, her wings half-furled, the wind rustling through her feathers like a breath held by the island itself. Then she looked down once more at the cove—quiet, still, and far too perfect.

Gadriel was watching the same sky.

Her posture remained composed, spine straight, shoulders squared in forced calm. But her eyes—those sharp, unflinching eyes—had followed the same shimmer at the edge of the horizon.

She saw it too.

A dome. A veil. A cage.

But Gadriel’s gaze didn’t linger in awe or fear—it tracked. Measured. Calculated. Like someone mapping every angle of the trap they were in.

Then, subtly, she turned her attention back to the ground.

Her fingers—still bound—began to move.

Not to escape. Not yet. But tracing. Testing. Her fingertips pressed gently into the sand within her circle, brushing against the glowing sigils at its edge. She wasn’t trying to disrupt them—just assess them. Read them. Gadriel was an influencer, after all—a strategist who dealt in power structures, manipulation, and perception. And the symbols encircling her now… they weren’t just binding—they were communicating.

A pattern. A message.

One she hadn’t decoded before.

And then her eyes flicked toward the center of the cove.

Toward Finnegan.

She studied him—not as a prisoner, but as a variable. A piece of the equation she hadn’t accounted for.

She knew something was off.

And then she turned.

Her eyes landed on Raidne and Teles.

The two sirens had moved again—this time not toward her, or Selene, or the altar.

They were crafting a third circle.

Molpe returned first, wings outstretched as she skimmed low over the ocean, three streaks of motion trailing just beneath the surface. Peisinoe surfaced first, followed by Thlaspi, and then Pisinoe.

Thlaspi looked toward the cove’s mouth, her brow creased. “Is this the place?”

Thelxiepe nodded. “Stay back for now. No one enters it again until Aglaope arrives.”

The words had scarcely left her mouth when two more figures cut through the sky. Corilato and Arrieciane landed with barely a sound, their eyes immediately drawn to the unnatural stillness of the cove below.

“The others?” Thelxiepe asked, stepping forward.

Corilato shook her head. “Parthenope split off from us—she’s still searching for Aglaope.”

“Where?” Thelxiepe’s tone sharpened.

“She thought she might have flown inland, toward the ruins in the old grove. If she’s not there, she’ll be near the cliffs,” Corilato replied. “She’ll find her.”

Thelxiepe exhaled slowly, the weight of command settling heavier on her shoulders than the wind ever had. All around her, her sisters waited—gathered, watchful, wings tucked and muscles tensed like drawn bows.

“Good,” she said at last. “We’ll hold here.”

And still, the cove remained silent, the water undisturbed. But above it, the Sirens stood in stillness—no longer scattered threads, but a chorus pulled taut in waiting.