The Lighthouse of Lost Sighs sat upon an island that did not touch the earth. It was anchored to the Archipelago of Eyelids by chains of silver kelp, floating atop a sea of clouds that tasted faintly of salt and peppermint.
Silas was the Keeper of the Beacon. It was a title that sounded grander than it felt. In reality, it meant he spent his evenings polishing the Great Lens and making sure Finnegan, the Glimmer-Cat, didn’t try to eat the moths that were made of evaporated dreams. Silas was a boy who moved with a slow, deliberate grace, his feet used to the tilting floor of the floating tower. He wore a heavy wool coat the color of a stormy sea and carried a pocket watch that ticked in time with the ocean’s tides.
Finnegan was not a normal cat. He was composed of sea-foam and trapped starlight. When he purred, it sounded like the tide retreating over smooth pebbles, and when he was excited, tiny bubbles of light would drift from his fur and pop with the scent of ozone.
“The wind is thin tonight, Finnegan,” Silas remarked, looking out from the gallery.
The Archipelago below them was beautiful. The floating islands were shaped like sleeping faces, their hills forming the curves of cheeks and brows. Usually, the Lighthouse emitted a soft, pulsing amber light—the Beacon of Sighs. This light would catch the “Lost Sighs”—those restless, invisible breaths sent out by people who were too worried to sleep—and draw them in, spinning them into a soft mist that would then settle back down onto the islands like a cooling dew.
But tonight, the gallery was dark.
An hour ago, the “Great Gloom”—a heavy, sound-muffling fog from the Deep Void—had rolled in. It hadn’t come with a storm; it had come with a silence so profound it felt like cotton in Silas’s ears. And when it retreated, the Heart-Prism, the core of the lighthouse, was gone.
“Without the Prism, the Sighs will wander,” Silas whispered. “They’ll grow heavy. They’ll turn into storms of regret.”
“Then we must go and get it,” Finnegan’s voice resonated in Silas’s mind. It wasn’t speech, but the feeling of a warm sunbeam hitting his face. “The Gloom is heavy, but it is slow. It has taken the Prism to the Grotto of shells. It wants to drown the light in the depths of the cloud-sea.”
Silas looked at his small wooden skiff, the Dream-Drifter, moored to the balcony. It was a fragile-looking thing, made of cedar and sail-cloth, but it was enchanted to navigate the currents of the sky.
“I’m just a Keeper, Finnegan. I stay here. I watch the light.”
“There is no light to watch, Silas. And a Keeper who keeps nothing is just a boy in a tall house. The islands are waiting.”
Silas looked down. Without the amber beacon, the Archipelago looked cold. He could see the faint, gray wisps of Sighs beginning to cluster in the valleys—restless thoughts of “What if?” and “I forgot.” They were becoming a fog that would choke the sleep out of the world.
“Warmth, salt, and a steady hand,” Silas recited, the motto of the Keepers.
He packed his satchel. He took a flask of “Liquid Moonlight” (which was actually just very good pear juice mixed with a bit of glow-worm dust), a compass that pointed toward the nearest source of peace, and a heavy blanket.
As they stepped into the Dream-Drifter, the floating island gave a gentle lurch. Silas untied the silver kelp ropes. The skiff didn’t fall; it caught the “Evening Draft,” a warm current of air that rose from the islands as they cooled.
“Which way, Finnegan?”
The cat stood at the prow, his foam-fur glowing a soft, electric blue. He sniffed the air. “South. Toward the Isle of Drifting Clouds. The Gloom left a trail of cold air. Follow the shiver.”
Silas gripped the tiller. The Lighthouse of Lost Sighs grew smaller behind them, a white finger pointing at a silent sky. Ahead of them lay the vast, shifting world of the Sky-Oceans, where the clouds behaved like waves and the stars felt close enough to touch.
The journey had begun, and for the first time in his life, Silas wasn’t watching the light—he was searching for it.
