Morning light filters through the shutters, casting thin blades on the floor.
Alyra opens her eyes abruptly.
Her heart pounds in her chest as if it's been racing.
For a moment, she doesn't remember where she is—then she recognizes the scent of lavender and wood from her grandmother's house.
She stands, still confused. Her bare feet touch the cold floor.
Her mind is a tangle of images: metallic lights, a voice calling her, the feeling of being watched by something beyond the walls.
She shakes her head.
Just a dream.
Just stress.
A cup of tea is waiting for her on the table, steaming. Lisbet smiles at her, but there's a veil in her eyes that Alyra can't decipher.
"You didn't sleep much, darling."
"I've had strange dreams, that's all."
Her grandmother puts the cup down.
"Dreams are windows. Sometimes they show more than we'd like."
Alyra tries to smile, but inside she feels a shiver.
She takes a sip and turns toward the window.
Her reflection looks at her—but remains still for a moment after she moves.
A second. Maybe less.
Enough to make her blood run cold.
She lowers her gaze, pretending nothing has happened.
She doesn't want to seem crazy.
The wind ruffles her hair as she walks down the path toward the pier.
She needs to breathe, to break away from that feeling of unreality that follows her like a shadow.
The stone houses, the closed windows of the summer shops. Everything is as she remembers, and yet... no.
From a cracked window she thinks she hears a voice.
Whispered.
"...come back..."
She stops.
No one around. Only the sound of the sea.
Maybe the wind. Or maybe not.
Another voice, from a window ahead.
"...the queen... must return..."
Alyra swallows. She clutches her bag as if it were a weapon.
Her breathing quickens.
A figure comes toward her.
Alasdair.
His smile breaks the tension for a moment.
"Hey, don't run away. I've been looking for you."
"Why?"
"I found something among my mother's things, but I think they're yours."
He hands her a worn leather notebook, the edges gnawed by time.
Alyra opens it.
Drawings, pencil sketches, quick but precise marks.
Cities suspended in the void.
Bridges of light.
Metal creatures with liquid eyes.
A broken throne.
And a little girl.
A little girl identical to her.
Her breath catches.
Turns page after page.
On the back of one, a thin, graphite writing:
"If you read this, Underpanel has already found you."
A shiver runs down her spine.
She snaps the notebook shut.
"Where did you get it?"
"In my mother's trunk when she moved. She says they belonged to your mother. Does it remind you of anything?"
Alyra shakes her head, too quickly.
"No. Just... old drawings."
Sitting near the pier, the sea stretches out before them, calm and silvery.
Alyra watches it. The reflection of the sky dances on the water, but for a moment something changes.
She no longer sees clouds.
She sees lines of light.
Roads that intertwine.
Towers that pulse like veins of steel.
A world beneath the surface.
She leans forward, hypnotized.
The voice returns, clear, inside her head.
"I found you, my queen."
Her heart skips a beat.
"Did you hear it too?" she whispers.
Alasdair turns, confused.
"Heard what?"
Alyra looks at him—and in the reflection of his eyes she sees herself.
Not the one she is now.
But another: crowned, dressed in light, smiling at her.