On her last evening, Nora stood again on the cliff path above Blackwater Cove and watched the tide darken toward dusk. The sea still kept its moods, its shadows, its old power. But the Serpent Line no longer felt like a haunting. It had been something finally named.
Nora left Blackwater Cove, less angry, though never quite at peace. The sea still moved as it always had—restless, unreadable, and older than every story told about it—but now the village had one less lie to sell and one more truth to live with, and for the first time since her father vanished, that was enough.