The morning sun filtered through silken curtains, painting golden streaks over Caelum's desk where a thin layer of dust still clung to unopened books. He stretched, feeling the ache of contented sleep settle in his limbs. There was a peace in waking like this—a calm before the next chapter of the world shifted.
A soft knock at his door interrupted the silence.
Before he could answer, the door creaked open and Elowen peeked in, cheeks dusted pink and eyes flickering with something between mischief and warmth. "Good morning," she whispered. "Are you decent?"
Caelum blinked. "Was that a serious question or just a tease?"
"Mm, both," she said, stepping in without waiting for permission. "You're lucky. I brought peace offerings."
He noticed the basket dangling from her arm. Inside, the corner of a folded napkin peeked out and the unmistakable scent of fresh berry pastries drifted over.
"You bribed me with food," he said, feigning outrage.
Elowen set the basket on his desk and flashed him a grin. "It worked, didn't it?"
It did. And more than that—it warmed him in places that had long been cold.
They ended up outside, beneath the sprawling branches of a willow tree in the far corner of the estate—one of the few places neither of them were ever disturbed. She spread the blanket out herself, insisting on arranging everything, and he watched as her fingers worked with the finesse of someone who'd done this before but never for anyone else.
He didn't need the novel to tell him that.
She handed him a warm bun filled with honeyed lavender paste, then sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched every few moments with the wind.
"This is for you," she said quietly after they'd eaten in companionable silence.
From her sleeve, she pulled a deep burgundy ribbon, embroidered with delicate gold thread in the pattern of falling petals. It shimmered faintly in the sunlight, almost magical.
"Did… did you make this?" Caelum asked, carefully taking it from her hand. The fabric was impossibly soft.
She nodded, suddenly shy. "It's an old family tradition. We used to enchant ribbons for luck, or protection. My mother taught me. I thought… maybe you could use one."
Caelum looked down at it, then up at her.
"You don't think it's silly?" she asked, fiddling with a piece of her hair. "I know you're not afraid of much—"
"I'm afraid of losing you," he said before he could stop himself.
She froze.
Then smiled, slowly and genuinely.
"You really have gotten bold," she whispered, almost to herself.
He held out his wrist. "Would you tie it?"
Elowen hesitated for a breath, then leaned forward. Her fingers trembled ever so slightly as she wrapped the ribbon around his wrist, looping it twice before tying it into a soft knot. The ends fluttered like petals in the breeze.
"There," she murmured. "Now you'll always find your way back to me."
Caelum's heart did something strange. It didn't just beat—it ached. In a way he didn't expect, like his body already knew what it would feel like to one day leave her behind.
"I'll make sure I never get lost," he said. "But if I do… come find me?"
"I will," she promised. "No matter how far."
Later that afternoon, they wandered the gardens again, fingers brushing every so often, neither speaking about it.
At one point, Elowen stooped to rescue a wind-tossed petal. "Did you know flowers talk to each other?" she said.
"Do they gossip?"
She laughed. "Yes. Especially about the boys who pluck them too roughly."
Caelum feigned offense. "I plucked one flower and it tried to bite me. That wasn't gossip. That was self-defense."
"I told you the blue ones were temperamental," she said with a smile.
"Then maybe I'll just stick with you," he said. "You're less prickly. Slightly."
She threw a petal at his face.
He caught it and tucked it into his notebook—the same notebook that had, for now, remained eerily quiet. There were no new glowing lines, no whispered hints from beyond. Just his words, her laughter, and a petal that still smelled faintly of her perfume.
That evening, when they parted ways outside the estate's hallway, the dusk painted her hair in soft twilight hues.
"I wish I could keep this day forever," she murmured.
"Then let's make more like it," Caelum said. "Enough to drown out whatever fate had planned."
She leaned in, not quite close enough for a kiss—but something better. A brush of her forehead against his. A whisper of breath between them.
"Next time," she said softly, "you plan the surprise."
And just like that, she was gone.
Caelum looked down at the ribbon still tied around his wrist. It pulsed with a quiet warmth, like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
The ribbon glowed faintly once, then stilled.
The moon had risen high, draped in clouds like a bashful guest. In his quiet room, Caelum sat by candlelight, the gentle flicker casting long shadows across the walls. On the desk before him lay the ribbon Elowen had tied to his wrist, now carefully removed and smoothed flat across an open page of his notebook.
He hadn't noticed it before, but the ends shimmered faintly even in the dark—threads catching candlelight like stars woven into silk.
He ran a finger along the embroidered petals. Each one was unique, imperfect, as if stitched by hand rather than magic.
She made this. For me.
The thought lodged in his chest, warm and strange and unbearable in its gentleness. He wasn't sure how to hold something so fragile without breaking it—or without being broken by it.
He opened the notebook, fully expecting another cryptic line from the system or some new glowing omen.
But the page was still.
Instead, in the margin of the last written entry, something had changed. A faint curling of ink—not glowing, not magical. Just... elegant. Familiar.
Her handwriting.
"Don't forget today."
A message she must have written when he wasn't looking. It wasn't magical—it was personal. Something real. Tangible.
He exhaled, slowly. His hand brushed over the words as if to seal them inside him.
Across the room, the candle sputtered. Wind whispered at the windowpane.
Without thinking, Caelum reached for a small wooden box tucked on the top shelf of his wardrobe. He'd been keeping mementos—things he told himself were nothing: a flower petal, a scrap of ribbon from the festival, a folded corner of Elowen's old note from their first library trip.
He opened the box, and for the first time, gently added the ribbon.
When he closed the lid, it felt like sealing a promise.
Later, lying in bed beneath soft blankets, he stared at the ceiling.
He tried to imagine a life where he'd never met her. Where the story had gone as written.
She would've become the villainess.
He would've died.
The protagonist—the so-called hero—would've gotten his happy ending.
Caelum frowned. No. Not anymore.
There was no going back to that version. No returning to fate's original thread. The ribbon on his wrist proved that.
And for the first time, he didn't feel like a background character.
He felt... chosen.
Not by the system. Not by the book.
But by her.
As sleep pulled at his limbs, Caelum murmured to the stillness:
"I'll protect her. Even from the story itself."
And in the silence that followed, something unseen listened