The breeze that wrapped around us on the way back was different. Not cooler, not drier, not darker… just different. As if the island had scented us when we entered the lagoon and was now continuing to recognize us as we left it, marked. Declan walked a few steps ahead of me, his tunic still damp and clinging to his body. I followed in silence, barefoot, feeling the mud between my toes, still tasting his mouth—his promise—beating in my chest.
We didn't speak. There was no need.
As we approached the house, I felt the surroundings had changed. Nothing was drastically different, yet the trees seemed to have turned their trunks slightly, as if they were now looking elsewhere. The air was heavier. The light fell strangely, as if the sun refused to touch the ground.
It was a vibration. Small. At the center of my chest. Not painful, but unsettling. Something… or someone… was in motion.
"Do you feel it too?" I asked quietly.
Declan didn't answer, but he gave a faint nod. His expression was no longer that of the light-drenched warrior from only hours before. Now his eyes were alert.
We reached the doorway as the sky began to deepen into a thick violet. We climbed the wooden stairs without a word. The silence still weighed on us, but it was no longer intimate. It was watchful. As if something were listening from beyond the walls.
We ate little. Or rather, we pretended to eat. Declan barely tasted the soup. I had no appetite either—only a hollow in my stomach that had nothing to do with food.
Later, we sat on the terrace. I had a blanket draped over my shoulders; he stood, leaning against the railing. The night was strangely quiet. No crickets. No wind. Nothing.
"The island has shifted," I murmured.
He turned his face toward me, surprised."You noticed it too?"
"I don't know if it was the trees. Or the air. Or something else…" I hesitated. "But we're not exactly where we were before. I don't know how I know. I just do."
Declan didn't deny it. And that was more unsettling than any explanation.
I lay back on the divan. The day's warmth still lingered in the wooden boards beneath my feet. He came closer without a word, and when he rested his hand on my shoulder to tuck the blanket more securely around me, exhaustion overtook me.
Without realizing it, I fell asleep.
I don't know how much time passed. But I woke feeling something soft. A caress. Declan's fingers tracing an invisible line along my cheek. Not with desire—with tenderness. As if he were remembering that I was there. As if he needed to touch me so as not to forget.
I didn't open my eyes right away. I didn't want him to stop.
But something else slipped into my awareness. Something that was not his touch, nor the night, nor the house. It was a presence. At the edge of the forest. A luminous silhouette. It wasn't near… but it was there. I knew it.
I opened my eyes abruptly. Declan noticed; he tensed.
"What did you see?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," I lied. Because I was. And I didn't want to say it aloud.
The figure. The same one I had sensed in the forest weeks before. It wasn't an animal. It wasn't a tree. It was a person… or something wearing human form.
And it was watching me.
I rose slowly. Declan said nothing. His body was calm, but the tightness in his jaw betrayed him. He knew something. Not everything… but something.
"Are you all right?" he pressed.
I nodded, though my heart was still racing.
That night it was hard to sleep. And when I finally did, I had a strange dream: distant voices. Leaves falling upward. A house built at the edge of the sea with a single room and no doors. And inside it… a woman with a blindfold over her eyes. My own voice saying, Choose whom you will save.
I woke with the sheets tangled around me, my throat dry, and an uneasy pressure in my chest. I went to the kitchen in search of water and found Melyra.
She was alone. Sitting by the window. Looking toward the forest.
"There's something I need to tell you," she said without turning. "But first, you must promise to listen to me until the end."
A chill ran down my spine.
I sat across from her. The teacup in her hands steamed. And in her eyes… there was sorrow. But also resolve.
"Not everyone here wants you to be safe," she said at last. "And I'm not talking about outsiders. I'm talking about someone you've greeted. Someone who has shared a table with you. Someone who is not with Declan. They're with Mikos."
The revelation dropped like a stone into my stomach.
"Who?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
She shook her head."Not yet. If I tell you now, you might act too soon. And that would cost us everything."
I stood, trembling."And does Declan know?"
"He suspects. But he can't prove it. And if he acts without proof, the island will punish him."
"The island?"
"Yes," she said, looking me straight in the eyes. "Because the island is alive. And it has not yet chosen whom it will protect."