A soft breeze filtered through the manor's open windows, rustling silk curtains like quiet whispers between the walls. The sun hung low in the sky, casting golden light across Elowen's chamber, where Caelum and Elowen sat cross-legged on a thick rug, an open book resting between them.
"I still don't get why they wrote 'fire' as a metaphor for desire," Caelum muttered, flipping the page with a skeptical look. "Seems reckless. Fire burns things."
Elowen chuckled behind her hand. "Then maybe they meant it precisely that way. Desire consumes."
"Spoken like someone who's secretly poetic," he teased, nudging her knee with his own. "Maybe you're the real author of this book."
"If I were," she said, gaze turning soft, "I'd write a happier ending."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy, but thoughtful—tender. Caelum's fingers brushed the edge of a ribbon in her hair. It was the same one she'd tied for him days before, now re-knotted around her braid.
He tilted his head. "You're still wearing that ribbon?"
"Of course. It's not just a ribbon," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "It's the first gift I gave you that wasn't forced, or expected of me. It's… ours."
Caelum's throat tightened, words catching on the emotions rising in his chest. He didn't speak. He simply reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—slowly, reverently—before letting his fingers linger against her cheek. Her skin, warm beneath his touch, trembled slightly.
"Elowen," he said, almost afraid of how much weight her name now carried in his heart.
She leaned into his palm, then blinked quickly and stood. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
Without another word, she grabbed a shawl and beckoned him down the hallway. They slipped through servants' passages and emerged outside under the soft canopy of evening. The garden was bathed in twilight, the statues casting elongated shadows on the cobblestone paths. But instead of heading toward the usual flowerbeds, Elowen led him to a low, overgrown wall of ivy and pushed through it.
A hidden alcove opened before them—untouched, quiet, the earth still damp and wildflowers growing unchecked.
"My mother used to bring me here," she said, crouching beside a tiny pool of rainwater framed by moss-covered stones. "Before she… changed."
Caelum sat beside her, careful not to crush the wild mint sprouting at his feet. "She changed?"
Elowen nodded. "After my powers emerged. People feared me. And she… she began to fear me, too. I remember thinking—if even my mother could be frightened of me, maybe I really was cursed."
Caelum's hand found hers, his fingers warm and certain.
"You're not cursed," he said. "You're lonely. And powerful. And kind. People don't know how to see all of that at once."
Her eyes shimmered—not with magic, but tears she didn't let fall.
"You always say the right thing."
"That's because I see you," he said. "Not what people say. Just you."
She turned toward him fully, and for a moment, Caelum thought she might kiss him. The way her gaze dropped to his lips, the way the wind caught her hair just right—it felt like a story writing itself.
But instead, Elowen leaned her forehead to his and whispered, "Don't disappear on me."
"I'm not going anywhere," Caelum promised.
But as they pulled away, the wind shifted, carrying with it the distant clang of metal on metal—faint, like a memory or a warning.
Elowen stiffened.
"What was that?" Caelum asked.
"I don't know," she said. "But I've been feeling something. A presence, maybe. Watching."
They stood in silence, the sweetness of the moment cooling under the weight of that lingering unease.
Unseen behind them, deep in the shadows of the hedge wall, the page of Caelum's notebook turned on its own. A new line had appeared in faint golden ink:
"The web begins to unravel. Be wary of threads you cannot see."