The tower groaned as Elara climbed, the spiral staircase littered with rusted tools and books bound in fish skin. Hargrove followed, her fingers tracing the air like a pianist rehearsing a silent song. Inside the control room, gears turned with a pulse— thrumm, thrum —and a screen flickered, showing footage of a woman with her own eyes, standing in the sea, screaming.

Elara had read the files. The last keeper, Thomas Hargrove, had been found dead at the base of the tower in 1947, his eyes gouged out and a single word etched into his chest: OPEN .

In the ocean’s abyss, the Things in the Deep stirred, then stilled. The lock held.