Wheeling Gull Isle And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

He hadn’t eaten or slept in days. He’d only moped and wept. By the time Caracal emerged on the mainland, his legs shook and he found he couldn’t move. He slumped on the sands, his single working eye looking keenly left to right for any sign of Judah. His heart sank when he saw no trace of him, not even paw prints in the sand.

Somewhere behind him, the traces for which he fruitlessly searched washed up on Wheeling Gull’s shore. They bumped gently at the feet of a man Caracal didn’t know was there until a wretched cry rose in the air. He jerked at the sound, saltwater still dripping from his vulpine snout as he gazed across the water.

He couldn’t see much from here, though there was no mistaking the alarm in Nakano’s voice. Some fatherly instinct knew exactly what it meant. Muttering “no” under his breath on repeat, Caracal pushed back into the surf and began to swim back toward the island.

When he came within fifty yards of shore, a black fin cut across the water just behind him. Caracal didn’t notice. He paddled frantically, trying to ignore the exhaustion in his limbs, desperate to get home despite what he feared he would find there. What but the worst possible news would prompt Nakano to howl like that?

With twenty yards to go, Caracal’s sighted eye spotted the small object at Nakono’s feet. He recognized it immediately. Breathtakingly excruciating agony exploded in his chest as his body went limp with shock. Gravity—or maybe something else entirely, maybe Satan himself—dragged him downward, his head vanishing beneath the choppy water with one last cry of Judah’s name.