"A girl…?" Noel repeated it quietly, not interrupting, just testing the word as if it might change shape if he said it out loud.
Theo nodded once. The motion was small, almost reluctant. "Yes. A girl."
He leaned back slightly in the chair, eyes drifting toward the narrow lighthouse window where the sea lay unnaturally flat, like a sheet of dull glass. "At the time, it didn't raise alarms. Visitors weren't rare back then. These islands were dangerous, sure—but not forbidden. Traders came. Some people stayed for a season. Others came just to see the place and leave with stories."
His mouth curved into something that might have been a smile, if it hadn't been so tired.
"We had problems. Monsters in the water. Creatures that whispered into your head if you stayed too long. Storms that could tear a ship in half if you misread the wind." He glanced back at Noel. "But what you fought out there? That thing in the sea?"
Theo shook his head slowly. "That wasn't here before."
