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After her grandmother’s funeral, Lily Marchand awakens in the creaking belly of a ghostly ship, dressed in salt-stiff mourning clothes and clutching a locket she’s never seen before. The sea groans around her. Moonlight fractures through cracked portholes. The name Midnight Star whispers through the fog like an echo from another life.

As Lily searches for answers, shadows move through the corridors—some familiar, some impossibly wrong. The walls breathe with memory, and the names carved into the ship’s rail match those in her family’s past. But the ship is not abandoned. Something waits below deck, ancient and watching.

Driven by fragmented visions and voices from beyond, Lily must navigate a vessel that shifts like a living thing—one steeped in secrets and bound by choices long buried. Time wavers. History repeats. And in the depths, the tide remembers everything.

Some doors were never meant to open.

Beneath the Midnight Star

The world dissolved into chaos. Light seared Lily's vision as the hook vanished from her grip, consumed by the void. James's hand tightened around hers for a heartbeat—then he was gone, his body unravelling into sea foam that glittered like shattered glass. The ship groaned, timbers splintering as the vortex at Nerites' core yawned wider, swallowing machinery, chains, and the remnants of the crew.

Water surged into the engine room, icy and relentless. Lily flailed, her lungs burning as the current dragged her deeper. Debris spiralled around her—rusted pipes, splintered wood, the captain's locket glowing faintly before it was swallowed by the dark. A beam struck her temple, and the world went black.

Lily woke to the sting of salt. Sand crusted her eyelids, her dress stiff with dried brine. She coughed, seawater dribbling from her lips, and staggered to her feet. The beach stretched empty, dawn bleeding into the horizon.

The funeral director eyed her sceptically. "You want to bury an empty casket?"

"Yes." Lily's voice steadied. "His body wasn't recovered."

At the graveside, she clutched James's broken locket. The priest droned about "eternal rest," but Lily heard only the sea's whisper, fainter now. She dropped the locket into the hole, dirt thudding against polished wood.

Back in Élodie's study, Lily burned the ledger. Flames consumed Théodore's pact, the ink curling into ash. Smoke coiled upward, and for a moment, she swore she saw Nerites' face dissolve in the fumes.

The Tide’s Embrace