The transfer harbour grew smaller behind Jasper's boat.

For several minutes he could still see Harper on the blue route dock and Ava on the green one.

Harper waved both arms as if ordinary waving had failed.

Ava held up her address card even though Jasper had already put his copy safely in his bag.

He waved until the distance made the gesture pointless.

Then the boats turned different ways.

Soren sat down beside him.

"You look dramatic."

"Everyone says that now."

"Maybe data."

Jasper laughed.

The history box was strapped into the seat beside him.

For the first time since leaving Room Fourteen, the empty space did not feel like it belonged to Harper's bag.

It was just luggage.

The route boat carried Jasper, Soren and several other students along the outer coast before turning toward the concealed approach.

From the water, Tidefall looked impossible again.

A year inside the Academy had reduced it to classrooms, stairs, homework, bad toast and the sound of Harper talking when everybody else wanted to sleep.

From outside, it became one enormous shape carved into white cliff.

Bridges crossed gaps between rock spires.

Windows flashed in the summer light.

The harbour entrance cut deep into stone below.

Jasper watched until his neck hurt.

The Water Titan's presence remained faintly near.

Not following the boat.

At least Jasper did not think so.

The strange sense seemed tied to the water around Tidefall itself, broad enough that distance changed it in ways he did not understand.

Perhaps the Titan was closer to this coast.

Perhaps Jasper's Titan-sense only worked properly here.

Perhaps neither explanation was right.

Ava would have written three columns.

Jasper let the possibilities stay unlabelled.

The boat reached the mist.

On arrival, Jasper had believed the pale wall was simply hiding Tidefall from the ordinary coast.

Now he understood more.

The concealment worked through perception, old route wards and folded geography that allowed Tidefall's coastline to occupy more space than an ordinary map showed.

Understanding the mechanism did not make entering the mist less strange.

White closed around the boat.

The cliffs disappeared.

The engine became the loudest thing in the world.

Then the Titan's attention sharpened.

Jasper stopped breathing for a second.

A cool pressure touched the centre of his chest.

No image came.

No warning.

Only recognition.

Jasper was leaving.

He did not know whether the Titan understood leaving the way a person did.

He did not try to explain.

He simply held the fact.

I'm going away.

Not forever.

Just away.

The pressure remained for one moment.

Then it faded.

The boat emerged from the mist into ordinary Australian coastline.

Tidefall was gone.

Jasper listened automatically.

Nothing answered.

Thorne's last instruction returned.

If the sea is silent, let it be silent.

Jasper took a breath.

Soren looked up from his book.

"Gone?"

Jasper nodded.

Soren did not ask what that meant.

He returned to reading.

Perfect.

The rest of the journey became ordinary travel.

Paper-wrapped lunch.

A student feeling sick over the side.

Soren explaining a boat winch until Jasper threatened to move seats.

Clouds shifting.

Coastline changing.

At the regional harbour, Jasper's parents were waiting behind the barrier.

His mother saw him first and waved.

Jasper stood.

Home.

The word fit immediately.

Tidefall did too.

That was new.