Merrick’s foot pressed harder, grinding the enforcer’s knuckles into the sharp quartz. A thin whine rattled through the man’s broken teeth. “The cutter leaves Morvalis at sunset,” he repeated, a manic gleam in his eye, even through the blood. “You’re trapped, butcher. And that rat-faced delivery boy? He’s the bait.” Inessa felt a cold claw tighten in her chest, sharper than any chill the sun-baked island had offered. Tavi. Hyperactive, annoyingly chatty, but innocent. He was a buoy in this strange sea, and now he was a target. She looked at Merrick, whose face was a mask of cold fury. The man on the ground was still laughing, a ragged sound that grated on her nerves. Merrick didn’t speak. He simply lifted his foot, then slammed it down again, this time on the man’s shin. A sickening crack echoed across the silent beach. The laugh died, replaced by a guttural scream. Inessa averted her eyes, a flicker of something she didn’t want to name — revulsion, maybe even fear — stirring in her gut. This wasn’t the stoic innkeeper. This was something far older, far more dangerous. He dragged the broken enforcer and his unconscious partner away from the shoreline, deeper into the tangled growth that bordered the Salted Fig’s property. The sand, still radiating heat, crunched under their heels. Inessa watched them disappear, the silence that followed more unsettling than the violence itself. The little black module with its pulsing green light lay forgotten on the sand, a harbinger of doom. Her exhaustion, which had been a dull ache, sharpened into a throbbing headache. The gray sprawl across the strait had followed her here, not in the form of spreadsheets, but in blood and broken bones. She needed answers. And Merrick wasn’t giving them. She walked back towards the sprawling villa, the sun’s glare almost painful on the white walls. The Salted Fig Inn seemed to shimmer in the heat, an illusion of stillness. Her steps were quiet on the sun-bleached floorboards as she moved past the non-ticking clocks, their hands frozen at various impossible hours. Merrick’s office, a room she’d only glimpsed, was where he kept whatever life he had before landing here. She found the door ajar, a sliver of shadow offering a slight reprieve from the oppressive light. The office stood frozen in organized neglect. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light slicing through the grimy window. A heavy oak desk dominated the center, its surface scarred with age, cluttered with old charts of ocean currents, a worn compass, and a half-empty bottle of amber liquid. A low bookshelf sagged beneath thick ledgers and archaic tomes, their leather bindings cracked and faded. Inessa ran her fingers over the cool, smooth wood of the desk. She wasn't looking for a confession. She was looking for a data trail. Every secret, every lie, left a trace. She pulled open the shallow drawers first, finding only dried inkwells, quills, and a scattering of forgotten coins. Underneath, a deeper drawer resisted. She jiggled it, then tugged, a grunt escaping her lips. It opened with a protesting groan, revealing a false bottom. Her fingers explored the hidden space. A slim, leather-bound ledger lay nestled within, smaller and more pristine than any other book in the room. This was it. She knew it. Her fingers traced the elegant, copperplate script on the cover: “Vessel Manifests & Cargo Receipts – Harbor Authority.” A lie. The local harbor post was a ramshackle shack with a single, half-blind clerk. She opened it. The first few pages detailed mundane transactions – fish sales, tourist supplies. Then, the entries shifted. Scrawled columns of numbers, coded financial identifiers, and names. Names she knew. Her breath caught. *Mainland Equity Holdings. Seraphim Global Dynamics. Aegis Mutual Group.* The same names that had appeared on her spreadsheets for years, the very entities she had spent her life optimizing, maximizing, exploiting. Her former employers. The bastards she’d fled from. The ledger detailed transfers, shell companies, and coded data packets. It wasn’t a vessel manifest; it was a ghost registry of illicit funds, a digital breadcrumb trail leading right back to the concrete towers of the mainland. Merrick Tahl, the quiet, brooding innkeeper, wasn't just hiding from a syndicate. He had stolen from her syndicate. Her profound exhaustion was momentarily eclipsed by a jolt of bitter amusement. The universe, it seemed, had a truly twisted sense of humor. A frantic banging on the door startled her, making her jump. The ledger slipped from her grasp, clattering onto the desk. Tavi stood framed in the doorway, his usual frantic energy amplified into outright panic. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his small eyes wide and bloodshot. “Inessa! Inessa, you gotta see this!” he stammered, his voice thin and reedy. “It’s happening. The Glass Summer. It’s here.” He didn't wait for her to respond, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the office, through the cool, silent halls, and out onto the veranda. The sun, which had been blinding just moments before, had undergone a terrifying metamorphosis. The sky was no longer blue, nor even simply bright white. It was a blinding, glassy expanse, like an enormous sheet of polished ice reflecting an invisible sun. The air itself seemed to hum, vibrating with an unnatural intensity that made her skin prickle. “What… what is this?” Inessa asked, her voice uncharacteristically small. Her usual sarcastic retort died in her throat. “The Glass Summer,” Tavi choked out, pointing a trembling finger upwards. “They say it’s when the light gets too heavy. When the island can’t hold it anymore. It just… traps everything in. For six months. Everything gets cooked.” As if on cue, a sudden, sickening thud echoed from the sandy courtyard below. A flash of white against the bright ground. They both looked down. A seagull, which moments ago had been circling lazily, lay on the sand, its feathers scorched black, its eyes glazed over. A thin plume of steam rose from its inert body. It hadn't crashed; it had simply fallen, boiled mid-flight. Inessa stared at the dead bird, a cold dread finally piercing through her armor of sarcasm. The heat radiating from the glassy sky was no longer a pleasant warmth; it was a searing, suffocating pressure. The air tasted metallic, like ozone and something burning. “Six months?” she whispered, the word feeling impossibly heavy on her tongue. “Trapped?” Tavi’s face was pale, his eyes darting frantically between her and the glass sky. “The mainland cutter,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “It was supposed to be here in a week. But… with this. The atmospheric distortion. They’ve moved it up. Just one more trip. To get everyone out. Everyone who wants to leave.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “It’s leaving in exactly 48 hours, Inessa. If you’re not on it, you’ll be on this rock when the real burn begins. You have to choose: back to the city, or burn alive.”

The Glass Summer Warning