Lucrezia recognized it: that was her Resplendent Star — but it was the Resplendent Star from another timeline.
It was the ship from decades ago, the one that in some rash border voyage had accidentally crossed the six-mile boundary and become “lost” — and at this very moment, decades-ago Lucrezia was standing on that ship, desperately trying to find a way back to the Boundless Sea.
The helmsman gripped the wheel so hard he broke out in a cold sweat (if his sweat glands still worked).
When he realized what the distant ship meant he almost cried out, “Ma’am! That’s a physical ship from another timeline — whatever you do, don’t contact it! It’s probably our interference that made us exit the Passage early; rash contact could drag us in!”
The helmsman’s shout snapped everyone on deck to attention.
They realized this situation was nothing like the time the Lost Homeland met the Sea Song inside the Passage before — that was just a stray echo in a temporal turbulence, a shadow of a ship with no true connection to them.
But the ship looming out of the fog now was the Resplendent Star from another time stream, the temporal counterpart of the ship beneath their feet.