Night returned with a patience that felt deliberate, its cold pressing quietly against the walls of the wooden hut.
Arthur woke with a heaviness behind his eyes, not pain, but pressure, like a thought he had forgotten to finish. He sat up and waited for the room to settle. Then he turned.
Empty.
Sean was gone.
Arthur rose, slipped on the thin coat from the chair, and opened the door. Sea air rushed in salty, damp, warm in a way that did not belong to night. The village lay still. Lamps burned sparsely between huts. Waves reached the shore with a rhythm too even, too rehearsed.
Normal, he thought. Too normal.
He saw Sean ahead, seated by a small fire along the sandy path to the beach. A fish skewered on a stick hovered above dying embers, neglected.
Arthur stopped short. He watched first.
Sean's posture was relaxed, but his attention was fixed on the water with a stillness that felt practiced. Not listening—waiting. Arthur had the unsettling sense that if the sea spoke, Sean would already know what it meant.
Arthur approached.
"What are you doing out here?" His voice was level. Controlled. "At this hour."
Sean turned only partway. A smile appeared, faint and incomplete.
"I woke up" he said. "The sea is calm."
Arthur sat beside him. Close enough to feel the heat of the fire, and the absence of it from Sean. His breathing was steady. Too steady. Arthur watched the small, exact movements of Sean's hands, the way his fingers rotated the stick at regular intervals.
"Since the storm" Arthur said, "you barely sleep."
A pause. Sean kept his eyes on the flames.
"My body's still recovering."
Arthur nodded, as if accepting the answer, then continued, carefully.
"Or something is keeping you awake?"
Silence tightened. The waves did not change their rhythm.
Sean smiled again. This time there was no uncertainty in it.
"Are you looking for me," he asked softly, "or for answers?"
Arthur did not blink.
"I'm looking for what's different."
Sean turned fully. His gaze was calm, almost reassuring and that, more than anything, unsettled Arthur.
"Then don't begin with me."
Arthur felt the urge to argue, restrained it. "I want to know you're alright."
Sean held his gaze. "If that's true," he said, "trust me. Not your suspicion."
Arthur said nothing.
His attention dropped to the pendant at Sean's throat. The stone caught the firelight, pale blue, then dulled, as if something had passed over it. Arthur watched for it to happen again.
"Your pendant" he said. "It's changing."
Sean's hand rose at once. The motion was swift, defensive.
"You're imagining things."
"Perhaps?"
Arthur looked toward the village. "The elder" he said, keeping his tone casual. "She knows more than she says."
Sean did not answer.
Arthur turned back to him. "You've barely spoken tonight. Is something wrong?"
Sean's gaze moved, from fire, to Arthur, to the sea. At that moment, the pendant flickered, once, so faint it could have been a trick of light. Arthur saw it anyway.
"I'm fine" Sean said. The words landed like a door being closed.
Arthur remained seated. The fire shrank to embers, breaking the light into fragments across the sand. He counted Sean's breaths without meaning to. Each one arrived on time. Too precise. What disturbed him was not a dramatic change, but the erosion of small, familiar irregularities habits that had quietly vanished.
Beside him, Sean watched the sea without focusing on it. Each wave seemed to arrive in sync with the pulse beneath his ribs. His shadow stretched across the sand and lagged, just barely, as if deciding whether to follow. He drew a measured breath and pressed the sensation down, sealing it.
The night enclosed them unevenly. The village slept. Wind carried salt and wet wood. When they finally rose to return to the hut, the sea behind them held the echo of their steps lingering, attentive.
At Sean's throat, the stone cooled completely, keeping a light that had learned how to stay hidden.