The air on the beach shifted, heavy with warmth and something more primal. It wasn't just salt and sunlight anymore - it was musk, skin, breath. The first of the newcomers began to remove their clothes, not in shame, but in curiosity. A girl with moon-pale hair dropped her shawl and stepped forward barefoot, brushing past Lucy to touch the moss creeping down from the trees. She gasped when it curled around her toes, gentle as a lover's sigh.
"It's real," she whispered.
Rose smiled faintly. "It always has been."
More followed. A pair - lovers already, it seemed - walked hand in hand toward the edge of the jungle. Jude watched the moss ripple as they stepped onto it, and felt the soft pulse in his chest answer. The island was opening to them. Slowly. Seductively. Daro and Kael moved through the group like guides, touching arms, whispering reassurance, radiating that soft, sensual glow that marked the awakened.