Cecilia Shadowmoor knelt on the cold stone floor of her laboratory, tracing chalk symbols around a glass jar. Inside, three dead moths lay still, their wings dull and gray. She had come to this remote place for one purpose—to bring back the glowing moths that once filled these mountains with light. But first, she needed to understand them. The old texts spoke of their behavior, their patterns, their strange attraction to specific lights. She needed living specimens to study. She needed to see them in action before she could hope to resurrect the dead ones in her jar. That evening, Cecilia worked in the clearing outside her laboratory. She drove two wooden posts into the ground and stretched a white sheet between them. Around the posts, she arranged antique lanterns in a half-circle. Their warm glow reflected off the fabric. She wound bioluminescent vines along the posts, their flowers pulsing with soft blue light. Within an hour, the first moths arrived. They circled the lanterns, landed on the glowing flowers, then lifted away again. Fireflies joined them, blinking yellow against the darkness. Cecilia sat on the ground with her journal and sketched their wing patterns. She noted which lights drew them closer. Each detail brought her one step nearer to her goal. If she could understand how they lived, perhaps she could understand how to make them live again. The journal filled with drawings, but Cecilia's supplies ran low. She needed more than observation now. The resurrection ritual required rare ingredients—powders made from mountain minerals, oils pressed from night-blooming plants, ink made from firefly extract. None of these could be found in ordinary shops. She returned to her laboratory and opened a dark wooden box on her worktable. Inside lay jewels that had belonged to her family for generations. They glinted with strange colors even in the dim candlelight. She lifted a pendant set with a deep purple stone. It felt heavy and cold against her palm. Tomorrow she would travel to the hidden market in the valley. There, people traded items that carried old magic. She would exchange these jewels for what she needed. The moths in her jar waited. Soon, she would have everything required to bring them back to life. She walked deeper into the laboratory, past shelves of bottles and dried herbs. At the far end stood an altar carved with symbols of death and renewal. Flowers grew from cracks in the stone surface, their petals white and perfect. This was where she would perform the final ritual. This was where dead moths would glow again. She placed her hand on the altar's cool surface and closed her eyes. The path ahead was clear now. Study the living. Trade for ingredients. Return here and speak the words that would reverse death itself. Everything she had learned, everything she had prepared, pointed toward this single moment. The glowing moths would return to these mountains. She would make certain of it.