The fog has settled into the basin like something waiting to be named. Nova stands on the ridge above Okanogan, the damp cold seeping through the canvas of her hoodie. She breathes slowly, measured, as if the air itself might shatter if she takes too much. In her right hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger, a single thread of spider silk catches the dying light. It glows amber, then violet, then nothing — a filament thin enough to be a thought, strong enough to hold the weight of a question. She found it on the trail an hour ago, stretched between two stalks of sagebrush. The web was empty. The spider had moved on. But the silk remained, trembling in the breeze like a bone of something that once lived here. “Even this has purpose,” she whispers. The words hang in the fog, not quite answered. She turns the thread slowly. Light runs along its length, splitting into colors that shouldn't belong to this world — teal, gold, a flicker of emerald. Nova's breath catches. She's seen this before. In Alaric's workshop. In the way Shogg's tendrils shimmer when it thinks no one is watching. She lets the thread go. It catches the wind, arcs once, and is swallowed by the fog. For a moment, the mist holds the shape of it — a thin line of light — and then nothing. Nova stares into the white. Somewhere down there, Shogg is learning the shape of restraint. Somewhere, Alaric is stirring a potion that tastes like patience. And up here, on a ridge that has seen a hundred seasons of dust and bloom, a girl who never asked to be part of anything holds the memory of silk in her fingers and wonders if alignment is something you find, or something you build. The fog shifts. The light changes. Somewhere below, a single moth begins its ascent. Nova turns and walks back down the trail. The night has just begun.