Elira returned before the next twilight.
The sky above the Lower Realm never truly darkened, but the light changed, shifting hues like breathing skin. She had learned to read it.
Her arms ached, her boots soaked from river crossings and hidden marshes. But she had food: a satchel of strange fruits, roots, and fungi that had pulsed warm under her touch. She had tested one carefully. It was not poisonous.
She stepped through the ruined archway.
Kael was awake. Sitting now, propped against a slab of stone. The twins lay close to him, watched over by glowing moss and the faint, rhythmic light of the ruins.
He looked up. Relief flickered across his face.
"You're back."
She nodded and knelt beside him, opening the satchel. "I don't know what half of this is, but it's edible. I think."
Kael took a piece, biting carefully. Then another. Elira followed, watching him for signs of pain, but none came.
She finally relaxed.
They fed the twins next, gently, cautiously. The girl latched easily. The boy was slower but drank in silence.
Time passed.
Nothing attacked. Nothing stirred.
It was, for the first time, still.
The kind of stillness that came not from absence, but from being observed, and left alone.
Kael watched the mist beyond the arch.
"It's waiting again," he said.
Elira didn't disagree.
She simply whispered, "Let it wait."