The fog didn't creep. It surged. One moment the city lights were a faint, shimmering blur in the distance, the next they were swallowed whole. The lantern above the pier flickered violently, its glow shrinking until it seemed to cling desperately to the glass.
Adrian's instincts screamed to move, but the air felt heavier here, as if each step would be through water. The sound of the harbor — the tide, the groan of ships, the clink of chains — fell away until there was nothing but the thudding of his own heartbeat.
Greaves muttered something sharp, his silhouette already disappearing in the white shroud. "Stay close, Donovan."
He didn't need to be told twice. He reached for the revolver at his side, the cold metal a poor comfort against the cold creeping through his chest.
Then came the sound. Not footsteps — softer. Bare feet sliding over wet wood.
"Adrian."
The voice was almost a whisper, almost a breath, and yet it cut straight through him. It was her voice. The same one that had been haunting the edges of his thoughts since that night in the cemetery.
"I know you can hear me."
His breath condensed in the fog before his face, too fast, too shallow. "Show yourself," he said, though it came out more like a plea than a command.
Something brushed past his shoulder — cold, damp, and gone before he could react. Greaves cursed again from somewhere in the mist, but the sound was moving farther away.
Adrian followed the voice, every sense sharpening despite the oppressive white that blurred the world into nothing.
A figure emerged ahead of him. Not fully formed — edges fraying into vapor — but undeniably there. She wore the same black dress from the funeral records, clinging to her frame as if wet, the train of it whispering across the planks. Her face was shadowed, but her eyes caught what little light remained, silver-bright and unblinking.
"You keep chasing the wrong ghosts," she said, her lips barely moving. "And soon, you'll be one of them."
She reached for him. Her fingers were long, pale, and dripping with seawater.
The lantern went out.
And the world became nothing but darkness, fog, and the sound of the harbor swallowing something whole.