The Shadows Network

The Eboncry, mk. II.

A heavy weight presses itself on every seer that ever was, is, and will be, identifiable as the mocking hand on one’s shoulder but vague enough to be overlooked as little more than passing discomfort.

An eye flattens itself against the world, scrutinizing it from a billion angles at once, as if to find a fresh perspective of one individual that He, in all of His infinity, cannot already see.

His words will be mistaken for earthquakes, and his sentences land in several points in history for no one in particular to decipher. 

I saw you die. Your...physical being requires the scalp that you lost. But instead, your scalp clings defiantly to the rest of you. You walk when you should be dead in the snow.

What parlor tricks she enact to shape this Little Stone. She imagines the paths you all walk as threads, and she pushes and pulls these threads as she sees fit. And as if to mimic me, she playfully knocks you off of your destined path. The disrespect. Twice, now, she has done this. Twice have the doomed willing strayed from their deaths to honor her design.

And you would have her wield foresight? 

Planets convulse. Something perched on the edge of It All perceives the motions as cosmic-scale laughter.

Fools.

Boredom radiates in waves, awkwardly occupying the skulls of random seers in moments of jubilee.

No matter. Enjoy your life. Now that it is significantly longer than your ambition. What purpose will you find besides the one We crafted for you? Do you even know?

The eye turns away from the Little Stone and retreats for other worlds.

No. Not yet.

-------

--A broken message received in pieces by several Seers in different time periods, all outside each Seer's native language. The message is impossible to interpret without an extra-chronological study.

However, when receiving the message, conjured feelings are forced into the recipients' hearts. This message is accompanied with feelings of fear and dread as a predator of impossible size dwarfs them. There is also the intense sensation of being crushed by the overwhelming smugness of a bully who has presented an unsolvable riddle.

But, there are those recognize elements of hubris and begin to search for a pattern.

To present an appropriate metaphor, we are in uncharted waters. With the network still down and nothing in front of us except difficult truths, the librarians and I are tasked with documenting things with the mindset that all is true until we can adequately discredit what we are told.

For the moment, here is what we are told. Our first completed document is a partial profile on one of our three guests.

Ambassador Enid Cassian was born in Sieri Lycar, as opposed to her elders who were born into slavery in many different corners of what she calls Ond's Eye. This social divide has led to dissenting political views between herself and her parents, a common disconnect between the youth and the older generation.

According to her, a finely cut divide can be found between the older generation's desire for conquest and the youth's desire for Queen Skylar Stabat's proposal for peace. The dissent resulted in a failed rebellion, which hastened the queen's plan to contact us. Where she was once willing to wait for Director Doi-Zhou's contact, she then felt the need to send Ambassador Cassian to make contact, a move the ambassador recognizes as particularly brutish, but necessary.

Enid trained from childhood specifically for this moment, leaving Sieri Lycar to study in a faraway land where time moves relatively quicker than it does her. For every year of study, a month passed for the rest of us. She would return to Sieri Lycar at the age of 18 to complete her studies in real time.

Enid claims that the island of Sieri Lycar was moved by a deity into the Pacific Ocean from Ond's Eye at the Queen's request. So far, we have no way to dispute this. The island was definitely not there before our interactions with Sieri Lycar began. The queen's goal, as far as Enid is allowed to tell us, is to make allies, beginning with us and moving on to their eventual integration into Earth. When asked why the Queen wished to meet with the Director and her partner, Enid claimed it was against her orders to discuss it. She could only tell us that a partnership with the Shadows was the Queen's biggest priority before securing international relations. This topic was the only topic where she declined to comment.

The Ambassador herself is naturally curious, especially in the face of technology. She's had many questions for our technicians, specifically about computers and mobile phones, neither of which Sieri Lycar has adapted to. She cites the yacht that she traveled on as the nation's most advanced technology they ever had, purchased from another nation in Ond's Eye for the very purpose of this meeting. Before then, none of the ships of Sieri Lycar, a self-proclaimed sailing nation, had engines.

The treatment of Enid and her traveling companions has quickly shifted from prisoner to guest. Enid has, to the best of her ability, answered every question we've asked her, save the questions that contradict her Queen's orders. Neither she, nor her companions have shown any signs of malice or hostility towards us, and they seem to be willing to ease us to concepts that we have not considered (i.e. magic, and large wolves). We are preparing Jasmine Ellis's apartment for their stay since it was already retrofitted as a holding cell.

Meanwhile, since all parties anticipate Jasmine's pardoning, she will be relocated to a hotel room.

We will add to this record as we learn more about Enid, and the circumstances of her arrival here at Lux.

"What are you doing?"

As the lab technician nervously lowered his camera, Deborah stepped closer to the observation window to intervene on his behalf. She makes a small wager. "Do you...not have cameras where you're from?" 

Enid eyed the camera and smiled with curiosity. "We've heard of such things, but our country never adapted them into our culture. Our grasp on technology is evolving as needed."

Deborah took the camera from the technician. "We use them for many things; To tell stories,  share events, document moments in time, celebrate and uplift people..."

"Which am I?"

"We're taking note of you. A face to pair with the notes we’re taking."

Obediently, Enid stood firmly in the observation window, allowing Deborah to snap the photo. It only took one attempt before Deborah returned the camera to the technician before he retreated to log his work. "You say your grasp on technology is evolving, but your yacht, and style of dress...?"

"All assembled for this one act of diplomacy," Enid replied. "The yacht was a gift from our former neighbors. This suit, however, we learned to craft from studying our new neighbors. We used both to put our best foot forward."

"So what was there before the yacht and suit?"

"Sailing ships and puffy dresses," Enid snickered. "I can't imagine going back to either. Sailing with the assuredness and swiftness of the engine is a mind-numbing comfort. And pants?" She shoved her hands in her pockets, delight plastered across her face. "The Queen's Court could never take pants from me."

An inkling sent Deborah's hand to her phone. "...Do you mind if I record this conversation?"

"By all means."

Deborah set her phone to record and laid it on a nearby rolling tray. "Everything you've said to me, security and the lab techs, all supports a growing theory amongst the people here. Some of us are wondering if anything you say is true. But we look at the wolf you brought, and we're forced to challenge what we know..."

"The truth is a challenge, in and of itself. I can promise you that, apart from the one secret my Queen has ordered me to keep, I will tell you any truth I know. But until there is trust, all I have are words. And I would never tell you to trust a strange girl from a strange land. So, I can only speak, and ask you to expand the boundaries of what you believe."

"Is that why you brought the wolf? To open us to new beliefs?"

Enid laughed and shook her head. "No. But he does help in that regard, does he not? In truth; in the short time Abidalla has been at my queen's side, she's never been without Okir. Okir was her first friend; the being that emerged from the Gauntlet with her. Rarely, they are ever apart."

"I imagine that her story will challenge our beliefs the most."

"Abidalla's story will rewrite religion," Enid confirmed. "It's better to confront easier truths first."

Deborah felt herself nod in silent agreement. "I'll tell you the theory that everyone is forming if you promise to confirm or debunk it to the best of your ability."

Enid leans closer to the glass. "Gladly."

Deborah sighed and began pacing the space in front of the glass cell. "So you've already told me that you're new to pantsuits and ships with engines, two things that are widely known staples across the globe. You come from a land that wasn't on any map a year ago, and while your politics are, by your admission, staunchly isolationist...we all know deep down it's impossible to hide a landmass on Earth. There were theories; maybe a volcanic eruption formed the landmass and your nation settled it. But...the land wouldn’t yet be fertile. On top of that, to settle and form a working government? You didn't do that in a year. Not without the whole world knowing. Not without us knowing."

Enid remained silent as Deborah knocked on the door to the truth.

"If the science doesn't add up, some of us are considering the fantastical. And after seeing Okir..." Deborah stopped pacing. "Sieri Lycar did not originate on Earth, did it?"

Enid searched Deborah's face as she struggled with the truth. "We are a troubled people, with a troubled beginning. We are an infant nation born out of war, and because of that, war was all we ever knew. To grow into something more, we needed to change. So the queen, with all her power, tore Sieri Lycar from its world and placed it safely here, where we hope to learn peace."

There it was in plain speech: Sieri Lycar, the Shadow's neighbor in the Pacific, appeared out of nowhere. Somehow, hearing it didn't make it any less difficult to accept. But it was a start. 

"Can you prove it?" Deborah asked.

"I cannot," Enid shook her head. "But the queen can. All I can do is prove that such power exists."

"How?"

"Hannah. Ask her to make you a nice tea. Once you realize that such power exists in the first place, it'll make certain truths easier to accept."

"The wolf isn't enough to do that on his own?"

"Yes, Okir is a magnificent beast, alien to your world. But he is just an animal. What you need is proof of the paracausal. Where better to begin than with--"

"The girl Deng Jia claims is a mage."

"Yes." Enid placed her hand on the glass. "It is as I said: Trust is a thing we must build. I understood that long before my Queen allowed me to sail here, long before she made me her ambassador. But I believe in my queen, and this partnership, enough to lay the foundations of trust. As your people's expression suggests, it takes 'baby steps.'"

Deborah was silent for a short time. And then she took her phone from the table. "Director Doi-Zhou should be here to speak with you tomorrow. Perhaps even tonight. But I would like to interview you again. As I'm sure Jasmine will. Would that be ok with you?"

Enid offered Deborah a genuine smile. "I would be honored."

Deborah stopped recording. "The apartment is almost ready. You won't be in this cell for too much longer. Thank you again for speaking with me."

"Thank you, Madam Librarian."

No one told Enid Deborah’s job title. That truth was spelled out in Deng Jia's painting of her. The title hung at Deborah until she accepted the idea that Deng Jia, whoever she was, was a prophetess of some kind. But that particular truth was for Pan to uncover. How Deng Jia knew anything about the Shadows was the one secret Enid spoke of, the one she said had to keep. 

Before she returned to her office, Deborah passed by Hannah's cell, and a mild curiosity stopped her dead in her tracks. Hannah stirred awake from her slumber on the cot in the corner. She turned to the glass door. 

"I spoke with Enid," Deborah said. "She told me some truths would be easier to accept if I asked you for tea."

Hannah stretched widely and wiped her eyes. She glanced around the space outside her cell. "Could you hand me that plant on the counter over there? And an empty cup?"

Deborah spun around and found the potted fern sitting on the windowsill. It was curiosity that marched her forward to retrieve it, and on the way back, she stopped by the water dispenser for a small plastic cup. She handed both to Hannah through the cell's receptacle, and the young girl carried them to the center of the cell.

Hanna removed her hood, and for a brief moment, she studied the plant intensely. She reached for the topmost leaf, and with the most gentle prod...

...the fern withered and died. 

Hannah's fingers pulled at the air as if they were coaching the plant to stand again. Green returned to the plague-stricken fern, a its stem produced healthy tea leaves. The leaves fell into a neat pile for Hannah to collect and deposit into the cup. Hannah's hand spun around the top of the cup and a small cloud formed above it.

It rained. The cloud rain into the cup. Deborah's heart leaped from her chest as she watched it happen.

Finally, Hannah raised a finger and the water rose from the cup with the tea leaves, dancing together, spinning in the air into the leaves withered and the water, heated and steaming, turned black. The water returned to the cup and the leaves returned to the soil of the potted plant.

Hannah glanced once more at Deborah and chuckled. Her finger and thumb came together and a cube of sugar formed between them. She tossed two cubes into the modest cup and gave her finger a swift twirl. The tea spun about the cup freely, dissolving the sugar while Hannah returned to the receptacle. "Hot or cold?"

Before she was addressed, Deborah had forgotten how to speak. She collected herself to respond. "C-cold..."

Hannah prodded the cold and the steam emanating from the tea stopped immediately. Frost formed on the bottom of the cup. "Enjoy!" Hannah beamed as she placed the cup into the receptacle. "Evermark has the best leaves, in my opinion. I studied hard to learn how to reproduce them. If only for myself."

Deborah took the cup from the receptacle and raised it to her nose. It smelled delectable. There was no scientist, no Shadow, no other person with any sense degree of caution to tell her that drinking from the cup was a bad idea. So she did. And the tea danced across her tongue like nothing she ever tasted before. "I..." Deborah regarded Hannah for what she was after all--she was, in fact, a mage. And she was likely someone who was sitting in her cell of her own free will.

"Thank you," Deborah said.

Lady in the Water

Deng Jia

When questioned, Ambassador Cassian confirmed that this painting was on board her vessel for us to find, and that it was the last of Jia’s works before her voyage.

Furthermore, when questioned about Jia’s intimate knowledge about Shadows and their personnel, she declined to answer, stating that to truthfully answer the question would violate Director Pan Doi-Zhou’s privacy. She would happily, however, answer the same question if either the Director, Molly Reass or Cyanne Demissie had asked her instead, or if they stated that it was ok to do so. She did, however, confirm that Jasmine was the subject of the painting, and that interest in Jasmine as an artistic subject came to Jia at the last possible minute. The painting was finished hours before the vessels departure, with the paint still drying by the time it was delivered to the VIP cabin.

PRIORITY ONE MESSAGE

As of this message, Lux is closed to all traffic. Do not attempt to approach Lux at this time.

The only exceptions are the Director, who is approaching from England, security personnel and Library personnel. Security and Library personnel are ordered to return to Lux at once. All scheduled leave for personnel in these categories is suspended.

Remote access to the Library is now Director-Only. Any unofficial attempt to circumvent these blocks will result in arrest.

Please stand by.

==L A N D F A L L // PT. 1==

Gentle waves pushed themselves onto the sandy beach, growing slightly larger as the storm pressed in. There wasn’t a living thing on earth that could see the eye of a serpent, pressing down through the clouds. The gaze was heavy with rapt curiosity. 

But to everyone else, there were clouds in the sky and nothing more.

In the month of her residency at Lux, the community had never been this busy. The new and freshly settled apartments were abandoned as Shadows and their families abandoned them for the barracks hidden in the mountain beneath Moonlight Palace. The businesses that had only just opened had closed at unadvertised hours. The security crew brought their undivided attention to the shore, and Jasmine had invested too much of herself to not see what masked horror approached from the sea. 

For someone who, by very definition, was a prisoner, Jasmine would have shaken herself free from her apartment, her cell, to meet the approaching vessel. But she didn’t need to. She was ordered released. And Savannah, ever her dutiful handler and loyal friend, drove her to the beach. Together, they were the first of the security forces on site, with Deborah having arrived not long after.

“I assume the Director and Eleanor are on the plane back by now.” Deborah hung up the phone. “Whatever this is, we’re facing it ourselves.” An organized wave of security officers began to file in, quickly setting up a defense wall and placing themselves between their home, and the yacht. 

Warrick was the last to arrive, true to the image he’d drawn of himself as of late. His gaze drew squarely into Jasmine’s presence and he scowled to Deborah. “Get this prisoner back to her cell immediately!” he barked.

“Excuse me??” Deborah shot back.

“This is a major security breach! The inmate must remain in her quarters until the all-clear is given. And since this is my scene, and I haven’t given the all clear, I want her confined and out of my sight–”

“Actually, It’s my scene,” Savannah replied flatly. “You’ve been implemented in an assault case and removed from your role, pending further review. The Director and Eleanor have named me your replacement, and I need Jasmine here since SHE was the one who detected the vessel in the first place. Also, she has studied these incidents more than anyone. I need her expertise.”

Warrick stared down Jasmine and Savannah, the two young women who dared remove him from his position. 

“I need you either behind the line, or in the barracks. You’re crowding me and my partner.” 

Outplayed, Warrick could only wince.

“Jazzy!” Jasmine’s head whipped away from the shore to find BK, breaking free from her security detail to meet her on the boardwalk. She fell into Jasmine’s arms. 

“What…”

“I told you I’d be here,” BK told her.

Warrick’s features twisted into bitter disgust. “So she’s allowed to be here? You’d rather have two inmates on the scene over me?”

“Were it not for Brooklyn’s intervention, Jasmine would not have confirmed the vessel and we wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Savannah replied flatly. “Besides, who do you think implicated you?”

Warrick’s resistance left him.

“Behind the perimeter, Mr. Warrick,” Savannah ordered. 

Reluctantly, he conceded the scene to Officer Savannah Morrison and moved behind the security line. 

“You two,” Savannah called to Jasmine and BK. “Eyes forward.”

Jasmine pulled away and faced the shoreline. The object she detected made itself known as an ornate yacht, sailing slowly toward the beach. She looked for a long time as it came closer and closer, growing larger and larger in her view. 

Together with Savannah and BK, Jasmine joined the security line, standing behind armed officers ready to defend their home.

It took about forty minutes or so for the yacht to finally run aground. The shore was quiet with expectancy. Jasmine could barely hear the waves on the shore over her thudding heart. But through the sound of her nerves, frayed at the ends, she could hear a door opening on the yacht. A girl, much younger and much more nervous than Jasmine was herself, marched to the bow of the yacht. She was dressed sharply in white and read formal wear, adorned with a large pin that reflected the scattered sunlight with ease. 

The young girl on the ship was flanked by another, dressed in hooded garb. Her violet eyes scanned the beach, and the security line formed by dozens of Shadows. Her caution was expertly contained contained.

The hooded girl looked skyward, and thunder rolled.

Jasmine’s attention was pulled to the sound of heavy boot steps on the boat. A third figure approached the bow of the boat. Older, strong, distinct. A woman bound in leather wrappings and silver jewelry, her hair a collection of long, cascading dreadlocks.

It was she who spoke first. “Peace be unto you.” 

As her older companion spoke, the girl in white peered nervously over the railing, with a smile. 

Before Savannah or BK could reach out to stop her, Jasmine broke the line and cautiously stepped out onto the beach, approaching the yacht at a snail’s pace. Savannah rushed onto the beach to put herself between the yacht and Jasmine. “This is a private beach. Wherever it is you’re sailing for, it isn’t here. We must ask you to leave–”

“You are The Weaving Shadows,” replied the older woman. “Are you not?”

Somehow, the stale, uncertain quiet on the beach only grew.

“I am confident we are where we need to be.” The woman concluded. 

The woman conceded the tip of the bow to the girl in white. Nervously, the girl looked at the line of security officers, their weapons trained on her and her traveling comrades. She swallowed thickly and steeled herself. “We apologize for our unannounced arrival. We come at the request of The Queen Saint Skylar Stabat. She extends her greetings.”

This moment where gifts turned into conversation was a long time coming, but the groundwork was already laid. The truth wasn’t as difficult to wrestle with as Savannah and Jasmine originally surmised. Through their continued gifts, The Shadows came to know Sieri Lycar, even if their interactions had been confusing at times. Jasmine had cataloged much of the paintings, statues, and armors that washed up on the shore, and through the sum of that study, she recognized all three of the yacht’s passengers from the artworks. 

Jasmine called to the girl in white “Can I assume you to be the Ambassador? Enid?”

The girl could barely contain her relief. “Yes! I am Enid Cassian, Ambassador to Her Grace the Queen.”

Jasmine glanced at Enid’s companions. “If I had to guess, that other girl is Hannah Holt, right? And the woman you travel with is Abidalla.”

More relief washed over Enid. “I’m glad introductions can be simple things. So much of this is complicated…we’re hoping that we can uncomplicate things for the sake of Her Grace and your Director. We hope that this meeting can be the precursor to their eventual meeting, and before long, a fruitful partnership.”

Savannah yielded to Jasmine’s knowledge of the paintings. For now, she accepted that these people were who they said they were. “Ambassador, if your intentions are for a meeting and nothing more, you’ll agree to be boarded and your vessel searched.”

“Of course,” Enid readily replied.  “However…” She peered nervously at Abidalla, who put her at ease with a nod. 

“There is an animal and a weapon aboard this vessel, both of which defy your understanding. I request that we bring both to you on the beach to deliver to your custody. Allow us this courtesy, and we will bow to your demands.”

Jasmine knew the animal right away. There was a painting of Abidalla walking alongside it. But certainly, it couldn’t be real….could it?

Caution flowed in Jasmine’s blood. She stepped back from the yacht, pulling Savannah back with her. 

“Proceed,” Jasmine replied. “Enid and Hannah will stay aboard. Abidalla will deliver the animal and weapon to the beach. Slowly. No sudden movements.”

Abidalla nodded in reply and retreated from the bow.

Enid smiled down at Jasmine “Thank you, for keeping an open mind. I know we’re asking you to accept a great many things.”

“I have to say,” Jasmine replied. “You appear more…modern.. than your artistic renders suggest.”

Enid nodded. “We’ve had a year to study the world around us. I hope those lessons we’ve learned from our neighbors have paid off.”

“A year.” Jasmine rummaged through her thoughts. “I look forward to hearing you explain how a landmass appeared out of nowhere a year ago, home to a nation of people that no one knew existed.”

Thunder rolled again, pulling Hannah’s gaze skyward once more. Droplets of rain fell from the sky.

“My queen and I would love to tell you the story,” said Enid, her diplomacy picking her words carefully. “There are other truths we must present.”

The superyacht rustled, shifting under the weight of something massive. Jasmine’s breath hitched in her throat. As did Savannah’s.

“How many of the fantastical aspects of the paintings are true…?” Savannah whispered nervously to Jasmine.

“I…don’t know. But I have a feeling that it’s more than we’ve ever could have assumed.” Jasmine blinked as the vessel continued to shift, disturbing the water. 

Enid’s head whipped around to something on the stern. Whatever it was, the security line saw it first and aimed their weapons. 

“Hold your fire!!” Savannah called. “Let them on the beach.”

Abidalla emerged portside and tossed several feet of heavy chains into the water. “For you, my friend. You are the lady of the water, after all.”

Jasmine hesitated before heading to the edge of the water and diving in for the chain. She was gone for only moments before she resurfaced with the heavy chains wrapped around her torso She met Savannah on the beach with the chain, pulling it ashore before it ran taut with something still aboard. Security officers rushed to the beach to grab hold of the chain.

It couldn’t be real, Jasmine told herself. But she knew in her heart that it was. “We’re ready.” Her curiosity glued her eyes to the yacht. Her caution caused her to step backward.

Abidalla turned away from shore. “Easy, boy…”  Jasmine could hear her say.

Jasmine’s expected breath lingered uncomfortably in her throat. And as she saw it…she swallowed. A wolf of impossible size, so large, the ship rocked with every step of its paws. Blackened fur, silvery steel eyes, and fangs as long as Jasmine’s straightened arms. But there was no ferocity within the creature, at least not now. The peace Enid and Abidalla wished upon them was also the creature’s wish. It peered along the security’s line of walls and weapons trained on it. 

Abidalla jumped from the yacht into the ocean and the wolf lept after her. The yacht rocked in the waters, newly free from the wolf’s weight. Abidalla led the creature onto the beach, He hooked his fangs into the chain and tossed it into the pile until it was taut again with the collar around his neck. When the Shadows pulled the chain, it obediently followed them away from the yacht. Settling without argument on the pier.

Abidalla watched the Shadows intently, and when she was satisfied with the wolf’s treatment, she approached Savannah, stopping a fair distance away. “It is important that you know that the weapon is never far from me.” In the wolf’s wake, Savannah and Jasmine had forgotten the weapon. Abidalla offered Savannah an oversized axe, decorated like the twisting trunk of a tree. “If there is anything more I could do to placate your concerns, the Ambassador, Hannah, and I won't hesitate “

The wolf was too much for Savannah to comprehend.  Savannah searched Jasmine for an answer. And Jasmine herself searched for answers in her research. The yacht was exactly the same as it was in the painting they received. “The artist behind the paintings Sieri Lycar sent…should we take them all literally?”

Abidalla was pleasantly surprised by Jasmine’s grasp on logic the queen assumed would have taken them much longer to accept. “Most of them, yes.”

Jasmine searched Abidalla’s cold and confident exterior and saw only a woman who was telling the truth. Moreso, she saw a woman with many answers, many revelations.

And in the absence of Savannah, still slackjawed by the impossible wolf, Jasmine acted in her stead. “Would you agree to temporary confinement?”

“We would expect little more at this stage,” replied Abidalla. “In fact, we hoped for such. We will take whatever accommodations you deem necessary, and we will wait for your director and her–”  She stopped. Like she was close to divulging a secret she had no right to speak “...her consort, for as long as we are required. As ordered by Her Grace. I only request that Okir, my wolf, be fed a strict diet of seafood, caught fresh from the sea here. Treat him well, and he will consent to any tests. I’m sure your curiosities are plenty.”

Jasmine turned to Savannah, who shook herself free from the creature and brought herself to attention. “Very well. You and your traveling companions will be placed in confinement. They’re already en route to meet with you.  You’ll go with these men to a temporary holding cell while we prepare an apartment for your stay. Due to his size…the wolf will have to remain in the cell, but we will feed him according to your instructions and allow for visits during your stay.

Satisfied, Abidalla nodded. “Thank.you.”

The security officers placed the Lycari guests in handcuffs. The young ambassador sighed in relief, her very acceptance into a cell being a major victory in her trials as a fledgling diplomat. She also offered her thanks before the three of them were escorted away from the beach under heavy guard. The rest of them performed a thorough search of the vessel, finding nothing out of place…accept for a painting of a young girl floating in the sea, a face of bliss projected on her features.

A face that mirrored Jasmine’s in accurate detail.