The sky was wrong.

Emma Carter stood at the edge of her penthouse balcony in Hayes Tower, staring up at the swirling aurora that painted electric blue arcs across the Manhattan skyline. It wasn’t natural—couldn’t be. The northern lights didn’t dance this far south. Not in July. Not with this intensity.

But Polaris had awakened, and the world had shifted.

The Afterlight Protocol had done more than just illuminate secrets—it had stirred something older, deeper. A signal pulsed across ...