Chapter 1184

Jude looked at each of them in turn-their faces determined, their love fierce-and he felt that old familiar fire rise in him. Whatever the island wanted, whatever the spire represented, they would meet it side by side.

He stepped forward, pulling Sophie and Rose with him, until they stood at the very edge of the pool. The hum grew louder, the spiral's glow brighter, the air thick with anticipation.

"What now?" Zoey asked, her voice steady but filled with tension.

"We listen," Jude said. "We watch. And if it shows us the next step, we take it together."

The silence that followed was broken only by the rush of the river beyond the pool, by the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze, by the sound of their breaths. And then the spire responded-not with speech, not with movement, but with light. The spiral markings flared brighter, casting the clearing in silver, and the water around the spire began to ripple outward in slow, perfect rings.