Chapter 17: The Name Restored

With the steadiest hand he had left, the old man wrote the name back into the gap.

As the ink settled, the sea outside the tower suddenly wrinkled. Wind came first through the cracks in the stairs, then through the window frames, the lamp glass, and the edge of every page. It did not roar. It came like someone late by many years who had finally found the door.

Chaoyin stood beside him, neither forgiving nor refusing.

She simply received, for her mother, the letter that at last knew where to go.