dmund Voss made maps of places that no longer existed, which Mara thought was either beautiful or insane — she wasn't sure yet which one made a better story. She'd driven four hours for this. Four hours north, where the highway eventually gave up and became a two-lane road and then a road that felt like a suggestion, and then finally the town of Vellhaven, which announced itself not with a sign but with the smell of salt and the sudden appearance of the sea. It was October. The light had that particular quality it gets in coastal towns in autumn — thin, slanted, the kind that makes everything look like it's already being remembered. She parked on the only street that ran parallel to the water and sat for a moment with the engine off, listening to it tick. Her editor had called the assignment a gift. Human interest, he'd said. Dying craft. Old man, beautiful maps, the sea taking everything. You'll love it. What he meant was that it was cheap to produce and the kind of thing that got