Luminous Conclave

The deck pitches gently as the light coheres, a figure braided from stars and frost-blue lines, standing where chalk circles bite the planks. I smell cold rope and metal, brine and old incense ground into the seams. The elders keep their hoods tight, breath blooming, palms tucked as if prayer could warm the air. Someone rang the bell twice earlier—impatient, wrong—and the sea answered by lifting us above the clouds. Pages skitter near the glow, diagrams smudged, an heirloom case open where my grandmother once tucked her compass. I note the time in the margin: 23:41, wind rising. This was not a summoning; it felt more like an answer arriving without credentials. The light steadied, then brightened, and the men bowed lower, counting under their breath. I followed the lines on the deck, salt-sweet and pungent, tracing them as I have traced bloodlines and rumors across decades. Every witness insisted Vojta would step through if we held the circle. Instead we learned patience again. The glow thinned, clocks ticked faster, and the sea kept its counsel. Vojta remains unaccounted for.