Tony and Peter had arrived before them,as they entered the room
The peace did not break.
It thinned.
Sylence felt it the way one feels fog retreat—not vanishing, not lifting entirely, just pulling back enough to reveal the outline of something that had been standing there the whole time, patient and unmoving.
Daylight changed the lighthouse.
Without darkness to push against, the beam lost its defiance. It rotated because it always had. Not as a warning. Not as guidance. As habit. As proof that something could continue without understanding why.
That unsettled him more than the night ever had.
They didn't speak much that morning. Planning happened in gestures, in shared glances, in the quiet acknowledgment that rest was no longer an option—only delay.
Andy worked first.
He refused the screens.
Instead, he sat at the long table with sheets of paper weighed down by rusted bolts and broken lenses, sketching slowly. Circles. Breaks. Empty spaces where something should have been. Every few minutes, he stopped, frowned, and erased an entire section—not because it was incorrect, but because it resolved too cleanly.
"Too neat is a lie," he muttered, mostly to himself.
Andrew moved through the lighthouse with measured purpose, mapping routes with chalk that could be wiped away easily. He marked stairwells that echoed too long, doors that resisted a second more than necessary, corners that bent sound strangely. He didn't ask questions. He had learned when answers only made things worse.
Tony returned from the lower levels sometime before noon.
No one heard him arrive.
He placed what he'd found on the table without explanation:
—an old climbing harness, dry but intact
—a sealed metal container etched with symbols no one recognized
—and a compass that did not point north, south, or anywhere the room agreed with
"Where were these?" Andrew asked.
Tony shrugged. "Where they needed to be."
No one pressed further.
Peter barely moved at all.
He watched.
Not the maps. Not the objects. The people.
He tracked who avoided the diary, who stood too close to it, who flinched when the lighthouse creaked in certain rhythms. When Lucia slept on the steps with the teddy clutched to her chest, he positioned himself between her and the stairwell without thinking.
Sylence noticed.
Lucia slept through most of the afternoon. When she woke, she didn't talk about dreams. She never did. But her eyes followed the sea longer than necessary, and whenever the waves fell too quiet, her fingers tightened around the teddy as if silence itself had teeth.
Sylence stood by the narrow window again.
The view hadn't changed.
That bothered him.
Claude's diary lay open behind him—not read, not closed. Respected. Like a wound that hadn't decided whether it wanted to heal.
Peter approached without sound.
"You're stalling," Peter said.
Sylence didn't turn. "I'm measuring."
"Same behavior," Peter replied. "Different justification."
A faint smile touched Sylence's mouth. "You were never good at comfort."
"Comfort ends stories," Peter said. "This one resists endings."
A pause.
"Do you believe the Septet?" Peter asked.
Sylence thought carefully. "I believe it exists."
"That's not belief," Peter said. "That's acknowledgment."
"I believe it wants freedom," Sylence corrected. "I don't believe it understands consequence."
Peter nodded once. "And the fragments?"
"They aren't power," Sylence said. "They're hesitation. Moments where a choice refused to resolve."
Peter's eyes sharpened. "Claude knew that."
"Yes."
"And he stopped."
"Yes."
"Then this journey won't be about collecting," Peter said.
"No," Sylence agreed. "It will be about placing things where they were never meant to return."
Below them, the lighthouse mechanism clicked—steady, deliberate. Not a warning. A heartbeat adjusting to new pressure.
Andy's voice carried from the table. "We're aligned. Come here."
The maps were spread wide now. Circles intersected not at points, but around absences.
"I mapped known Fragmented Soul disturbances," Andy said. "Disappearances. Paradoxes. Systems that failed without resistance."
Andrew frowned. "That's half of recorded anomalies."
"Exactly," Andy said. "But look at the pattern."
He tapped the paper.
"They're not random. They form gaps—zones where reality stopped correcting itself. Long enough for something to move without being seen."
Lucia looked once, then away. "Those places feel… exhausted."
Andy nodded slowly. "That's where the cave fits."
Sylence folded the final bag and cinched it tight. Inside: the briefcase, sealed now but faintly warm; tools Tony had brought up; pages Andy refused to digitize.
"We don't rush," Sylence said. "And we don't finish anything we don't understand."
Peter snapped his case shut. "Then this is the last calm moment."
Andrew glanced around the lighthouse. "Feels too quiet."
Sylence looked up as the beam swept past the window.
"Quiet doesn't mean safe," he said. "It means listening."
As if acknowledging the thought, the wind shifted—not stronger, just attentive.
Far out at sea, something adjusted its position beneath the waves.
And deeper still—beneath stone, beneath time—the Fragmented Soul registered intent.
Not fear.
Not resistance.
Interest.
Bags were lifted. Zippers sealed.
The cave waited.
And the story—patient until now—leaned forward.