The London rain was no longer merely rain; it was a liquid shroud enveloping the St. Jude Clinic, a fortress of red brick and hypocrisy hidden within the greenery of Surrey. Belinda sat in the back seat of a taxi, her knuckles white as she gripped the door handle. Her heart was a frenzied pendulum, suspended between two abysses separated by thousands of miles: Azzurra, locked behind the reinforced glass of that gilded prison, and Elia, who at that very moment was fighting for a heartbeat in a hospital ward in Messina.
Her cell phone vibrated again. A message from Nonna Anna: "His breath is a silken thread, Belinda. The doctors say the mud in his lungs cannot be cleared. Move."
Belinda closed her eyes and tasted the salt. It wasn't just despair; it was the realization that time was demanding an impossible sacrifice from her. The taxi pulled up before the clinic gates. Erica had blocked every legal avenue of access, but Belinda was not there to argue over stamped papers.
Stepping out of the car, she found Oliver waiting for her under the shadow of a great oak tree. The boy was pale, swallowed by an oversized coat that failed to hide the trembling of his hands. The marks of the Draunara on his neck had turned a deep violet, almost black, as if the venom of the sabotage were searching for an exit.
"Oliver," Belinda said, grasping his arms. "I have to go. Elia... Elia is slipping away. I would never forgive myself if he died alone while I fought Erica's windmills."
Oliver looked at her with a maturity that did not belong to an eighteen-year-old. "Go, Signora Belinda. I'm not moving from here. Maya is trying to infiltrate as a cleaner, and I... I am ready to smash those windows if I hear Azzurra scream. She is my other half now. If she suffocates in there, I suffocate out here."
Belinda looked him straight in the eye. She saw the same spark she had seen in Samuele, and then in Elia. That sacred obstinacy that turns men into guardians. "Don't leave her alone, Oliver. Erica's silk is more dangerous than dynamite. It seeks to suffocate you gently until you stop fighting. Promise me you will keep her awake."
"I promise on my life," he replied.
Belinda turned and ran toward the taxi waiting to take her to Heathrow. As the car pulled away, she saw Oliver's silhouette in the rearview mirror—a small point of resistance against the immense power of English money and "normalcy."
The journey to Sicily was a seamless tunnel of anguish. Belinda had no memory of checking in, nor of looking out the airplane window. In her mind, there was only the image of Elia on the sand, motionless, while the pier burned. Every air pocket, every jolt of the aircraft, felt to her like a reverberation of the explosion.
When she landed in Catania, the Sicilian air hit her like a slap. It was heavy air, thick with humidity and the cloying scent of bitter oranges rotting on the ground after the storm. She rented a car and drove toward Messina as if her own will could fuel the engine.
The Piemonte Hospital was a building that exuded exhaustion and resignation. Belinda ran through the white corridors, ignoring the calls of the nurses, until she found the door to the intensive care unit. Nonna Anna was there, sitting on a plastic chair, her rosary beads moving between her fingers with feverish speed.
"Is he still here?" Belinda asked in a thin voice. Anna looked up, and in that moment, Belinda saw the entire tragedy of their lineage. "He was waiting for you. The sea will not let him go, but the earth will not take him back either. He is in limbo, Belinda."
Belinda entered the room. The sound of the machinery was rhythmic, alien. Elia seemed smaller, almost fragile beneath the white sheets. His face, usually so proud and weathered by the sun, was a terrifying shade of gray. The tubes protruding from his mouth and nose looked like steel parasites.
She approached the bed, trembling. There was no room for anger now, nor for guilt. There was only the primal love for the man who had been her rock while she tried to fly among the silken clouds of London.
"Elia..." she whispered. She leaned over his body and took his hands. They were rough hands, covered in callouses—hands that had mixed concrete and hauled nets, hands that had stroked Azzurra's hair when the world seemed to be collapsing.
Belinda began to cry. These were not silent tears; they were sobs that came from deep within her chest, a lament that seemed to answer the roar of the waves crashing against the ruins of the pier a few miles away.
"Forgive me, Elia. Forgive me for leaving you alone to stand guard. I asked you to protect a dream while I chased a ghost," she murmured, her tears falling onto her husband's cold skin.
She brought his hands to her lips. She kissed them with a devotion bordering on prayer, bathing them with her weeping. In that moment, Belinda was no longer the director of the fund, nor the mother of the prodigy ballerina. She was the woman who had seen her husband give his blood for her vision.
"You cannot leave me now. Azzurra needs you. I need you. The Lighthouse is dark, Elia. Who will relight it if not you?"
The heart monitor emitted a different beep, a sudden jolt. Belinda felt an almost imperceptible flutter beneath her lips. Elia's fingers, which until a moment ago were as stiff as dead wood, moved. It was a minimal movement, like the reflection of a fish beneath the surface of the water, but it was real.
Belinda held her breath. "Elia?"
The man's eyelids flickered. Slowly, with immense effort, they lifted. Elia's eyes were clouded, but when they settled on Belinda, they seemed to find a glimmer of light. A faint light, like that of a candle at the back of a cave.
The man tried to speak, but the tube prevented any sound. However, the pressure of his hand against Belinda's spoke for him. You came back.
"I'm here. I'm not leaving again," she vowed, continuing to kiss him.
At that moment, hundreds of miles away in the St. Jude Clinic, Azzurra bolted upright in her restraint bed. The doctors who were about to administer the sedative stopped, startled. The girl was not screaming. She was smiling.
"Dad answered," Azzurra whispered.
Oliver, leaning against the bark of the oak tree in the park, felt the heat on his arms fade, transforming into a constant, reassuring vibration. The earth had stopped shaking. Elia's sacrifice had been accepted, and Belinda's kiss had sealed the return.
But the truce was fragile. As Elia took his first autonomous breath under the incredulous gaze of the doctors, Belinda knew her mission was only beginning. She had saved the man, but her daughter was still a prisoner. And the enemy, seeing that blood had not been enough to extinguish the Lighthouse, would launch the final assault.
Belinda dried her tears and looked at her husband. "Rest, my love. Now I am going to get our daughter. And this time, I am bringing the sea to London."