Cold seeped from the subterranean waterways and into the marrow of their bones. Eloise pressed her back against a wall of damp concrete, the slow pulse of the deep-violet gem in her palm her only remaining source of warmth. The control chamber was lit solely by the pallid glow of emergency lamps, illuminating drifting motes of dust and the strained faces of her companions.
"Croft has replied," Redmond said, lowering the encrypted communicator. Her amber eyes flickered in the dimness. "He agrees to meet—but under harsh conditions. I must go alone, one hour after the archive closes, and I must bring a token of 'sincerity.' He wants a residual sample from Morrell's cane fragment."
Leon frowned. "It could be a trap. The Association may be monitoring every former archivist."
"Or it could be our opening," Eloise replied, rising to her feet as the gem revolved in her hand. "If Croft demands proof, it means he wants to verify what we know. If we can show that Morrell truly colluded with the elven hawks, he may become our most vital ally."
Zoe summoned the city surveillance interface—her tablet had been destroyed in the warehouse blast, but Leon's sister's safehouse housed a more formidable device. "Three high soul-energy signatures are still moving in the Old Harbor District. Their scan pattern has shifted from wide-range to focused. The elves are narrowing the net. By dawn at the latest, they'll find this place."
"Then we have only tonight," Eloise said, turning to Redmond. "Can you make it back safely?"
Redmond nodded. "My grandfather taught me certain… methods of evading pursuit. Not magic—old intelligence tradecraft. The archive's ventilation system connects to the city's water network. I can enter by way of the canals."
From a storage locker she retrieved a waterproof pouch and placed inside a small vial of crimson powder—the final crystallized residue of Morrell's cane, extracted by Zoe's improvised device.
"Take this." Eloise handed her a tiny communicator disguised as a coat button. "Modified. Soul-energy shielding. Three minutes of transmission. If anything goes wrong, activate it and we'll come for you."
Redmond fastened it beneath her collar. "Two hours. Whether I succeed or fail, I'll signal."
She vanished into a narrow maintenance conduit, swallowed by darkness.
Silence settled over the control room. Leon checked his weapons. Zoe tracked elven signals. Eloise returned to the console and opened the yellowed notebook whose missing pages they had found hidden inside an old engineering manual.
The handwriting matched the earlier entries, but was shakier, as if written in haste or anguish:
"…When word reached the Sterling family that Virlithe Starlight-Wing had been imprisoned, Alfred was already dying. He entrusted the Time Anchor to his eldest son, William, leaving these words: 'The Elven Singer gave me light; now she has fallen into darkness. The Sterlings owe her freedom. When the hour ripens, we shall spend our entire bloodline to rescue her.'
But the hour never ripened. The Elven Court sealed all records. The Morrell family expanded its power. The Association purged every voice sympathetic to the Dove Faction. William sought the moderates of the Court and received only this reply: 'Virlithe betrayed her people. Her fate is deserved.'
For seven generations the Sterlings searched for a path. Yet the Time Anchor weakened—perhaps because, severed from its bearer, Virlithe's starlight core was withering. By the sixth patriarch—my father—we calculated the moment of extinction: the end of three centuries of imprisonment would also be the extinction of starlight itself.
That year is now. 1823 to 2023. Three hundred years.
And you, Eloise, are the seventh. The strongest Spirit-Seer. The final hope. If you read this, I can no longer tell you the truth myself. Seek Croft. He holds the full archives. Then choose.
Save her—or watch her vanish.
Whatever you choose, remember this: what the elves gave was not a tool, but trust. Humanity must answer with equal light."
The entry ended with a name:
Adrian Sterling.
Her father—dead three years ago in a so-called "laboratory accident."
Eloise traced his signature with trembling fingers. Dark stains marred the paper's edge—coffee, perhaps, or something more ominous. She remembered the months before his death, the sleepless nights, the red veins in his eyes. She had thought it was stress. Now she knew it was the weight of a countdown.
"Are you all right?" Zoe asked softly.
"My father knew everything," Eloise said, closing the notebook. "Viretta. The Time Anchor. The deadline. His 'accident' may not have been an accident at all."
"The Association?" Leon asked.
"Or the elven hawks. Or both." She slid the notebook back into its pouch. "But we can't lose focus. Zoe—any change in elven signals?"
"One is moving toward the docks. The other two are stationary." Zoe magnified the display. "Its path is strange. Not a straight search—more like… circling. Wait—"
She adjusted the parameters. The dots overlapped into a complex geometric pattern.
"A reconnaissance sigil," Eloise said. "'Starlight Net.' A high-order tracking spell. Once complete, every soul-energy fluctuation within its field will be captured. Including Viretta's core. Including the Time Anchor."
"Completion time?"
"Three hours. By dawn."
Exactly when Redmond was due to return.
The hum of machinery filled the room.
Then Leon raised a hand. "Vibration. Not above us—beside us. In the pipes."
Eloise killed the lights. Darkness fell, pierced only by the gem's glow and the cold shine of screens. Activating spirit-sight, her vision turned silver.
Within the water main beyond the wall, something moved—not water, but rhythm: three taps, pause, two taps.
"A code," Leon whispered. "My sister's distress signal."
He keyed in commands. A grainy black-and-white feed appeared: Redmond crawling through the pipe. Behind her, the water shimmered with silver light.
An elven tracking mark.
"She's been tagged," Eloise breathed. "Croft betrayed her—or the meeting was watched."
The silver glow thickened, shaping itself into floating elven script:
We have found you.
"Evacuate," Eloise ordered. "Leon, initiate purge protocols. Zoe, plot the shortest escape route off the main lines."
"And Redmond?"
"We intercept." Eloise pressed the gem to her chest. "But first—we buy her time."
Closing her eyes, she attempted what she never had before: folding time.
Viretta guided her: Imagine two currents… one flowing true… one slowed… crease them where they meet…
Soul-energy surged from her. The gem burned hot. In spirit-sight, the silver trail slowed, thick as syrup.
Redmond sprinted.
"Seventy percent reduction!" Zoe cried. "But how long?"
"Five minutes," Eloise gasped.
They fled into the maze of tunnels. Rusted ladders. Dripping valves. Graffiti from forgotten decades.
When the distortion collapsed, the silver light surged again—angrier, brighter.
"Something else is coming," Redmond's voice crackled. "Not just the mark—something's chasing me!"
Hoof-like footsteps struck water.
Astral hounds, Viretta warned. They track by soul-scent. Only blinding contrast will stop them.
"Flash charge!" Eloise shouted.
"Only one—and it could collapse the pipes!"
"Better than being caught!"
They triggered it.
White fire flooded the chamber. A shriek answered—inhuman, furious. Then stone and iron fell like rain.
They burst into open air.
A rusted door. The sea. Pre-dawn darkness.
But silver light gathered again from every direction.
"Dockside!" Leon cried. "The boats!"
They leapt aboard a derelict trawler. The engine coughed alive. Lines were cut. The vessel drifted free.
Then the sky changed.
Not sunrise—starlight. Cold, absolute starlight washed the harbor white. Three figures descended like judgment angels.
At their head: Aurora.
"Deliver Lady Virlithe," she commanded. "Final warning."
Eloise raised the gem. "She will not go with you. She chose to trust humanity."
"She was deceived," Aurora said. "Then and now."
Eloise projected the memory: the gift of the Time Anchor, light and hope entwined.
For the first time, Aurora faltered.
Then came worse news: Starlight Harvest—seven days.
A purge. A genocide.
Aurora faced them, torn between duty and truth.
"There is one path," she said at last. "You come with me—not as prisoners, but as witnesses."
Hostages, Eloise knew.
But Viretta pulsed with quiet faith: She has light within her…
"We will go," Eloise said. "On one condition. Redmond stays behind with the evidence. If we fail, the world will know."
Aurora nodded.
The ship rose on woven starlight, climbing between worlds—into the corridor of the elves.
"Welcome to the Border," Aurora said. "Here, time bends. Law is starlight. You are not guests."
"We are witnesses," Eloise answered.
They stepped onto luminous stone. Viretta whispered:
"Three hundred years… and I return not as a prisoner… but as truth."
The murals of elven history lined the halls. The last one was shattered.
Eloise knew what it had shown: Virlithe, peace-bringer, taken and erased.
Lies had buried history.
Now starlight would speak again.