A s Princess Nell approached the edge of the cliff, picking her way along 
carefully through the darkness, taking care not to snag the train of her 
nightgown on thorny shrubs, she experienced a peculiar feeling that the entire 
ocean had become dimly luminescent. She had often noticed this phenomenon from 
the high windows of her library in the tower and reckoned that the waves must 
be reflecting back the light of the moon and stars. But this was a cloudy 
night, the sky was like a bowl of carved onyx, allowing no light to pass down 
from the heavens. The light she saw must emanate from beneath.