This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The ancient stone steps of the Luminous Observatory creaked beneath Lyra's careful footsteps as she ascended the spiraling staircase for what she believed would be the last time. Tomorrow, the university would officially close the century-old astronomical facility, declaring it obsolete in an age of digital telescopes and satellite imagery. But tonight, under the cover of autumn's first snowfall, she had come to say goodbye to the place that had shaped her understanding of the cosmos and her place within it.

As a graduate student in astrophysics, Lyra had spent countless nights in this tower, mapping constellations and tracking celestial movements. The observatory had become her sanctuary, a place where the chaos of her daily life dissolved into the ordered dance of planets and stars. Her colleagues often teased her about her romantic notions of astronomy, preferring cold data to the wonder she felt when gazing into infinity. They called her old-fashioned, a dreamer lost in an age of scientific pragmatism.

The heavy wooden door to the observation deck groaned as she pushed it open, and a gust of winter wind immediately whipped her long auburn hair across her face. She pulled her wool coat tighter and stepped onto the circular platform where the great telescope stood sentinel against the night sky. Snow dusted its brass fittings and ancient lens, giving it an ethereal quality that made her heart ache with impending loss.

Lyra had always felt a peculiar connection to this particular telescope. Built in 1887 by the eccentric astronomer Professor Aldrich Starweaver, it bore intricate engravings along its base that seemed to tell a story in symbols she couldn't quite decipher. Local legend claimed that Starweaver had been obsessed with finding what he called "the bridge between earthly love and celestial harmony," though his research notes had been lost in a fire decades ago.