Page 154 of The Last Remaining Light

His gaze dropped to the doll again. “Just for a single moment. I wonder if she remembered something about herself.”

Elowynn had no answer.

There was no scholarly phrasing or carefully reasoned theory. There was no comforting lie. There were moments when knowledge became useless, and she was discovering more of them tonight than she could bear.

Instead of answering, she knelt before him then wrapped both hands around his and the doll together. His fingers were cold. They held the broken thing between them like a fragile relic of someone who had almost been remembered.

Then Caelyn released it into her care.

Elowynn held the doll carefully while the clinic woman began cutting away the ruined bandages. Caelyn bowed his head and endured the cleaning with his teeth clenched and one hand braced hard against the crate beneath him. He made no sound when the antiseptic touched the deepest wounds, but Elowynn saw his knuckles whiten.

Looking around, she saw one of the children watching from across the shelter, curiosity lighting his large, almond-shaped eyes. Korvel was questioning the engineer and two other survivors in low voices near the entrance. Alyra stood close enough to hear everything while acting as though she was only guarding the door, but Elowynn knew her tactics. Lora moved among the children with a handful of crystals, showing them how to make the glow brighten or dim by covering parts of the surface with their hands. It was a foolish little distraction and perhaps dangerous if any of the crystals were unstable, but the children’s breathing slowed and they all looked like she held the very stars in her palm.

So did the adults. They looked grateful to see the children calm.

For a few precious moments, the shelter became something more than a place to hide. It became a place where people reached for one another, remaining connected beneath a dying city.

Elowynn watched Lora crouch beside a little girl and whisper something that made the child’s mouth twitch into a smile.

The scene reminded her of Lumenshire after storms, when the abbey bells would call strangers inside without question. She thought of Agatha's tea gone cold beside open books, of Caelyn's hand steadying her wrist in the lower archives, of all the quiet kindnesses that had carried her through grief when she hadn't been strong enough to carry herself.

Darkness didn't always arrive as a great force. Sometimes it arrived as exhaustion, as silence, or as the belief that reaching for someone else would make no difference.

Lora, ridiculous and terrified and still trying, seemed determined to prove otherwise.

The clinic woman finished tying fresh bandages across Caelyn’s back and sat back with a tired exhale. “He needs rest.”

They all did. Everyone was dirtied and bruised. Thirsty or hungry. Exhausted.

Korvel had come over after talking to the engineer. He waved a hand toward the three dark tunnels branching from the far side of the shelter. “The outer maintenance route is blocked. A collapse sealed the western exit sometime after the first tremors.”

Lora looked up from the children. “You said one of those tunnels led out of the city.”

“It does,” Korvel replied. “Or it did.”

The shelter seemed to close in and around them. Suffocating. Elowynn felt the loss of that imagined escape like a physical blow. She had not realized how strongly she had clung to the hope of escape until it vanished from their grasp.

Beyond the city walls had become a shape inside her mind, a place where Caelyn might breathe without being hunted and Lora and Alyra might live long enough to have the future she knew they were planning.

Now it was gone.

“There are other routes,” said Caelyn, his voice low and rough.

Korvel narrowed his eyes. “That's a great deal of confidence for someone who's never been here.”

Alyra was staring at Caelyn, her eyes scrutinizing. “Say what you really mean.”

The engineer rubbed both hands over his face, leaving fresh streaks of soot across his skin. When Caelyn offered no reply, he let out a weary breath and answered instead.

“The Starless are moving through the lower observatories.”

Everyone turned to look at the engineer.

Elowynn felt the words enter her one at a time, each of them finding some tender, frightened place to sit in her chest.

Moving. Not wandering. Not attacking at random.

Moving.