Page 17

CALLIE

I haven’t slept.

I do that thing where you lie on your back and count the knots in the ceiling wood like they’re stars that owe you answers. Only the answers never come, and neither does peace.

So I get up.

Sometime after midnight, barefoot and pissed off, armed with a hot glue gun, a toolbox, and one hell of a need to do something other than feel.

Because if I let myself feel for too long, I’ll spiral. And I’m way too stubborn for spiraling.

So I build.

On a folding table under the crafts tent with a mug of overly sweetened coffee and a playlist of angry pop girl ballads blasting in my earbuds, I make something.

Something bright.

The idea hits me like a shot of adrenaline and spite. The lake’s gotten dangerous, right? Unpredictable. Especially at night. But the kids still want to sit by it, want to belong near it. Magic or not, this place is home to them.

So I build a guide.

A floating ring system solar-powered, water-safe, soft-glow panels fixed to reworked pool noodles and clear tubing. It’s messy and a little janky, but the lights pulse soft and golden in my test bucket.

Like fireflies on the water.

I design it to link together. A net of light to outline the new safe swim zones.

But that’s not the part that keeps me up until 4 a.m.

It’s the centerpieces.

Five larger float markers. Black and silver etched with sea-runed patterns I pulled from the sketch in Ryder’s notebook he left on the dock once and probably thought I hadn’t seen.

Each of them glows blue. Soft. Steady.

Like a memory that doesn’t hurt as much when it’s shared.

A tribute.

To his people.

To the ones he lost.

To the ones he’s still trying to save.

At sunrise, I drag the whole setup down to the southern dock.

Ryder’s already there.

Of course he is.

He’s always up before the sun. Always in the water before the rest of us remember how to function.

He’s chest-deep, arms crossed like he’s arguing with the lake itself.

When he sees me coming with a tarp full of tangled tubing and glitter-smeared float rings strapped across my back like some chaos hydra, he blinks like I’m an illusion.

“You building a raft to escape camp?” he asks, voice low but not unkind.

I drop the load on the dock. “Tempting. But no. You’re stuck with me, barnacle boy.”

He raises an eyebrow.

I gesture to the mess. “It’s a safe float system. Night-lit. Linked for visual boundary guidance.”

He stares.

I grin. “In English? It glows. It floats. It helps the kids not die.”

His eyes drop to the larger center rings, the ones with the markings.

And that’s when he stills.

I fidget suddenly. Which I never do. “I, uh, copied the patterns from that notebook you left out. The one in your cabin. I figured they weren’t just doodles.”

“They’re not,” he says softly.

We both go quiet.

The lake licks the dock gently, like it’s listening.

He steps closer.

Touches one of the glowing blue rings.

His thumb runs along the markings, so reverent it hurts to watch.

“These… these are deathlights,” he says.

I blink. “Wait, what ?”

He looks up quickly. “Not in a bad way. They’re tributes. Beacons for those lost in the trench. They glow to show their spirits the surface. They’re used during mourning ceremonies.”

“Oh.” My voice goes small. “I didn’t know.”

He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have known. But you still made them. ”

I shrug, awkward now. “I just figured... even warriors deserve stars.”

His throat works around the silence.

“No one’s ever done anything like this. Not for them. Not for me.”

I don’t know what to say.

So I step closer. “They’re for the kids, too. To feel safe. To see where the danger ends and the trust begins.”

He nods.

Still doesn’t speak.

His eyes are bright now, too bright for the sun just yet.

And when he turns away to blink fast, I pretend I don’t notice.

Because some grief deserves dignity.

Even when it glows.

We’re still standing by the dock, the float rings gently bobbing in the shallows, when heavy footsteps crunch behind us on the gravel.

Torack.

He’s always got the presence of a thundercloud that learned how to walk shoulders wide, arms crossed, beard braided with enough sea-stone to qualify as a small weapons cache. Obviously his daughter Lillian’s work.

He stops at the end of the dock, staring out at the glowing markers without a word.

In that low, slow rumble of his: “Did you make this?”

Ryder doesn’t hesitate. “No. She did.”

Torack’s thick brows twitch. He turns to look at me like I’ve just shapeshifted into a full-blooded trench sentinel.

I brace for sarcasm. A snort. A dad-joke about noodle glitter warfare.

Instead, he grunts.

Then, flat as dry toast: “Good job.”

I blink. “I, what?”

“Shows initiative,” he adds.

I blink harder.

Ryder smirks, just barely.

And me?

I open my mouth. Close it.

Then finally manage, “Thank you?”

Torack nods once like he’s just delivered a full emotional speech, then turns and walks back toward camp without another word.

I stare after him, stunned.

Ryder leans in, low and amused. “Speechless?”

“Shut up,” I whisper. “I’m having a moment.”

We stand there a little longer, just the two of us again, the lake breathing slow beneath the web of light I made.

Ryder doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“You should feel proud.”

I glance sideways. “Because Torack didn’t insult me?”

He shakes his head. “Because what you made matters. You saw a problem and built a solution that’s smart, safe, and ” he hesitates, then smirks, “annoyingly clever.”

I laugh once, sharp and surprised.

Then he says, more gently, “You’re a good engineer, Callie.”

The breath gets knocked out of me.

Because no one’s said that to me in… a long time.

Not since I left the internship back home. Not since I swapped out schematics for sunblock and safety vests.

I swallow. “Thanks,” I say, but it comes out small.

And it makes something tighten in my chest.

Because that word, engineer , carries a whole life behind it.

Deadlines. Expectations. Pressure. A version of me that wore pencil skirts and pretended she knew what she wanted.

I didn’t run to Camp Lightring just to escape job hunting.

I ran from growing up.

From being serious. From being stuck.

From becoming someone who stopped laughing.

But hearing it from him , in that voice, with that look in his eyes, doesn’t feel like a trap.

It feels like maybe I could be both.

Maybe I already am.