Time had passed, although she didn't know just how much.

  The silence felt wrong.

  The sea stretched in every direction, endless, still. The storm was gone, leaving nothing but a void of gray water and gray sky, blending together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

  No wind. No waves. No wreckage.

  Just her.

  Floating.

  The sea burned her lips, her eyes, her throat. The cold had sunk into her bones, but she wasn’t shivering anymore. She wasn’t moving at all.

  There was no point.

  Her arms ached. Her legs ached. Her chest ached. But the water held her up, gentle now, like it had never tried to kill her at all.

  Her fingers twitched. She could still feel the weight of the compass in her palm. The edges pressing into her skin. The glass cool against her fingertips.

  But it wasn’t there.

  Her hand clenched.

  It was never there.

  Her stomach twisted, nausea rising, thick and bitter. A cold thought slithered its way into her mind, wrapping around her ribs, sinking deep.

  Had it ever been real?

  She squeezed her eyes shut. The pressure in her skull pulsed, knocking—distant, dull, but there.

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  A bathtub.

  Staring at the water. Hands gripping porcelain. The sound of her own breath, shallow and shaking.

  A grave.

  Dirt under her nails. The weight of something pressing against her spine.

  Nothing.

  Just standing. Staring. No sound. No time.

  The pressure in her head grew sharper.

  She gasped, eyes snapping open.

  The sky was still empty. The sea was still calm.

  And she was still here.

  She was still here.

  She wished she wasn’t.

  The ocean had taken everything else. The ship. The storm. The compass. The body.

  Why not her?

  She exhaled slowly, watching the breath leave her lips in a shudder. The air felt too light, too thin, like it wasn’t meant for her anymore. Like she was stealing it from something else.

  The sea was supposed to take her.

  That was the rule, wasn’t it? The tide pulled you under, and it didn’t let go.

  But it did.

  Her limbs floated uselessly in the water. The weight in her chest should have dragged her down. The exhaustion, the grief, the knowing—should have sunk her like a stone.

  But she was still here.

  She turned her head, just enough to scan the horizon. There was nothing. No shore. No wreckage. No broken pieces of wood bobbing beside her.

  Even the sky looked empty, smeared in colorless gray. No clouds. No stars. Not even the sun.

  Her fingers twitched.

  The compass had been real. It had to have been real. She could still feel it against her palm. She had held it. Had seen it spin. Had—

  Had she?

  A sharp inhale. A flicker in her skull.

  A hand gripping hers, calloused. The warmth of skin against her own. Laughter. A voice, teasing and familiar, like the memory of a song she couldn’t quite place.

  Gone.

  She blinked.

  The water lapped gently at her cheeks. A lullaby. A lie.

  She tried to remember what the compass looked like.

  Gold, wasn’t it? Rusted at the edges?

  Or was it silver?

  Her stomach twisted.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but the inside of her head was worse.

  A bathtub.

  A grave.

  Nothing.

  Her own voice echoed inside her skull. A question she didn’t know if she had ever asked out loud.

  Was any of it real?

  Her chest ached. She tilted her head back, let the water slide against her skin, let herself float.

  It would be easier to sink.

  She could let go.

  She could stop fighting.

  She could let herself slip beneath the surface and finally, finally let the sea take her the way it had taken everything else.

  She exhaled.

  Waited.

  The ocean held her up.