Amanda blinked. "You're not jealous of people recognizing him? There's like… fan fiction about him."
"I'm used to it," Bar said with a shrug.
"So what brings you all the way to the edge of the world?"
"Hideout," Bar said. "He doesn't know what to do with fame. Hates it, kind of. Loves it, too."
Val stretched. "We model sometimes. Bar's done runway in Paris. I mostly do campaigns. Hair stuff. Vintage looks. You get used to people thinking you're shallow."
Amanda smiled, but her mind raced. Beth. She thought of Beth and the boy on the hill. The one who called himself Lenored Forchevelle. But if Leon Troy and Bar were together… then who had Beth met?
"So," Amanda asked, lowering her voice just a little, leaning in over her half-eaten cinnamon roll, "how long have you and Leon been together?"
Bar didn't hesitate. "Two years. I was seventeen. He was nineteen." Her voice was light, almost casual, but Amanda caught the faint glint in her eyes—the kind that comes from remembering something that still sparkles.
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "That's young."
Bar smiled. "It was Cannes. You know how that goes."
Amanda leaned closer. "Oh no. I don't. Please enlighten me."
Bar laughed softly, shifting James Dean on her lap. "Neither of us was supposed to be there, you see. I was tagging along with one of my friends—Nina, she was sort of dating Sanlu Ritzchel at the time. Leon came with his cousin, Aglaya Simon."
Amanda's eyes widened. "Wait—Sanlu Ritzchel and Aglaya Simon? You mean the two rappers who rapped all the way from Plato to Spinoza?!"
Val snorted into her coffee. Bar just nodded like this was the most normal conversation in the world. "Yes."
Amanda dropped her voice even lower. "Are they really soulmates? Like the press made them out to be?"
Bar tilted her head. "Oh, totally. But purely platonic. They're inseparable. Like two philosophers who lost their bodies and found each other in rhyme."
Amanda blinked, then laughed. "That's insane. In the best way."
"So," Bar went on, as if reciting a vivid diary entry, "Sanlu and Aglaya saw each other across the room, shrieked over In Search of Lost Time—Marcel Proust, first edition, French print—because of course they did. And while they were waxing lyrical about memory and metaphysics, Leon—who was, and still is, a very big flirt—asked me to dance."
Amanda was now thoroughly invested. "And?"
Bar smiled. "He's a very good dancer. And an even better kisser."
Amanda let out a low whistle.
"He asked me out one week later," Bar said simply.
Amanda leaned back, stunned and delighted. "That's very glamorous of you."
"Well," Bar shrugged, "it was a glamorous year. MTV wouldn't shut up about Sanlu and Aglaya. They were everywhere—been on-screen since they were sixteen. MTV, late-night interviews, freestyle competitions that turned into poetry slams. Everyone was watching them. No one noticed us."
As Amanda stepped out of the bakery and back into the cool, coastal air of Sakrisøy, her boots clicked fast against the cobblestones. Her mind buzzed with the weight of the conversation, and for once, her pace was brisk and purposeful.
Leon Troy. The masked boy.
Bar—his actual girlfriend. A model. Calm, clever, worldly.
Beth…
Amanda's thoughts tangled like fishing lines in a storm.
She didn't want to assume anything. Beth hadn't said what exactly had happened on those long hill walks. But Amanda knew her sister—how she'd started checking her reflection more often, how she seemed quieter, distant in a way that wasn't sad but secretive. And now Amanda could no longer brush it off as a harmless holiday flirtation.
Leon Troy isn't just a moody boy with good cheekbones.
He was famous. Complex. Already claimed.
And Beth didn't know that.
Amanda frowned to herself. She's just seventeen. Still believing people mean what they say when they say it with sad eyes. She picked up her pace.
But then, at the far end of the street, she heard someone call her name.
"Amanda! Is that you? My goodness, I haven't seen you since that gallery opening in Bergen!"
It was Elna, an old family acquaintance who once painted watercolors of codfish and made it a career. Beside her was her new boyfriend—someone with a beard too large for his chin and opinions too large for his shoulders.
Amanda smiled automatically, the way all practiced extroverts do when they're ambushed by friendliness. "Elna! Hi—how are you—?"
And that was it.
Another hour gone to stories of Elna's mural commissions, her upcoming exhibition in Tromsø, and how the boyfriend believed you couldn't "truly understand the sublime unless you've listened to Wagner while underwater." Amanda nodded, charmed and trapped.
Back at Grandma Sophie's house, late sunlight still drifted lazily across the living room. Beth was curled on the window seat, pretending to study but glancing at the horizon more often than her workbook. Jefrey was nearby, hunched over a spread of economics notes with his usual air of grim focus, occasionally muttering things like "the marginal rate of substitution is absolute nonsense."
The door creaked open.
Chris stepped in, cheeks wind-pinked, hair windswept, eyes glazed with cinematic rapture. He dropped his bag and announced, "I saw the most majestic seagull today. Just perched on a roof like it owned all of Norway. I felt connected to it. It was like Gandalf, but with feathers."
Jefrey didn't look up. "You've been watching the extended edition again, haven't you."
Chris flopped onto the couch. "Obviously. I cried when Sam carried Frodo. Again. For the thirty-third time. That's love, by the way."
Beth didn't say anything. She kept her gaze fixed out the window, where a distant silhouette moved down the path toward the house.
Amanda, finally.
She looked slightly windblown, a bit distracted—but her eyes immediately locked on Beth's. Not suspicious. Not angry. Just knowing.
Beth's heart gave a quiet thump of dread.
Because she knew—Amanda knew now.
Beth stood up from the window seat, careful not to move too fast, though her heart was pounding.
"I—uh—I need to go to the bathroom," she said quickly, her voice a little too high, too casual.
Amanda opened her mouth—Beth could feel it—but before anything could be said, Beth was already slipping down the hall, footsteps light, cloak swishing. Not toward the bathroom. Toward the back door.
Chris watched the door creak shut behind her and narrowed his eyes, suspicious in that very specific way Chris got when a dramatic arc was forming.
"What was that about?" he asked.
Amanda hesitated for a breath, then exhaled. "It's Leon."
Chris blinked. "Leon… Troy?"
Amanda nodded grimly. "The masked boy. It's him. He's not just some poetic mystery guy from the hills. He's actually Leon Troy. Call Me 'Goodbye', Leon Troy."
Jefrey finally looked up from his notes, mouth slightly open.
Chris leapt to his feet like a man blessed by divine revelation. "I knew it!" he cried, fist-pumping into the air like Frodo had just reached Mount Doom. "Lenored Forchevelle—split image! I knew that cheekbone structure was not local!"
Amanda crossed her arms. "His actual name is Leon. 'Lenored' is just some weird affectation, probably something he uses when he wants to flirt in peace."
"There were rumors," Chris said, pacing dramatically. "Rumors that he'd dropped out of public view. Health issues, mental stuff, you know the tragic genius trope. And now he shows up here? In Reine? Looking like a Byronic ghost prince?"
Jefrey rubbed his temples. "Wait. Beth has been spending time alone with that Leon Troy?"
Amanda gave him a look. "Not just spending time. Walking up cliffs. Taking long walks. Being photographed. Almost kissed."
Chris gasped theatrically. "The dream. The dream, Jefrey."
Jefrey, however, was not dreaming. He looked toward the hallway where Beth had vanished, jaw tightening.
"Does she know?"
Amanda hesitated. "No. I don't think she does."
There was a pause. The house was suddenly quieter, the warm light from the kitchen window spilling across the floor like something fragile.
Chris was pacing the living room like a man possessed, practically vibrating with glee, arms gesturing wildly.
"I must get him to sign an autograph," he declared, as if it were a matter of national diplomacy. "On something real—a program, a photo, maybe my shoulder, I don't know! I could frame it and hang it next to my Elijah Wood shrine!"
Amanda groaned. "Please don't ever say 'Elijah Wood shrine' out loud again."
But Chris was unstoppable now. "Do you realize who's been walking around these hills like a windblown myth? That's Leon Troy, who was cast in Twilight City, for God's sake. The Twilight City. The adaptation of When the Sky Closed Its Eyes."
Jefrey looked up sharply. He had been staring at the door Beth had just slipped through, a knot growing in his stomach, and Chris's words now only added to it.
"Isn't that the one where the world ends with the collapse of the white flower fields and the lovers die under the frozen stars?" he asked, distracted.
"Yes!" Chris cried, eyes gleaming. "White flowers everywhere. Everything collapsing in slow motion. He plays Aurelan—the doomed cartographer who falls in love with the blind daughter of the astronomer. The whole film is just tragedy and longing and monologues about the sky. It's pure cinematic depression. I preordered the collector's poster already."
Jefrey didn't respond.
Because while Chris was consumed by the thrill of celebrity proximity, Jefrey was thinking about Beth.
About how quiet she'd been lately. About her flushed cheeks every time someone mentioned Lenored. About the way she smiled—not her usual, guarded smile, but the rare one she gave when she didn't think anyone was looking.
He stood slowly, setting his pen down with deliberate care.
"You think she knows?" he asked Amanda.
Amanda didn't answer right away.
"I don't think she wanted to know," she said finally. "I think she just… liked who he was when no one told her who he was."
Jefrey pressed his lips together. His chest felt tight.
Chris was still beaming. "Can you imagine? A romance with Leon Troy, actual living movie legend, who vanishes like a character from his own scripts? It's a modern fairy tale! With fish, fjords, and emotional peril!"
Jefrey didn't say what he was thinking.
That fairy tales never end well when one of the lovers doesn't know what kind of story they're in.
Chris, now fully activated in fanboy historian mode, stood beside the fireplace as if preparing to deliver a TED Talk titled The Genealogy of Celebrity Genius.
"Lenored A. Forchevelle," he intoned, pacing again. "His actual name is Aaron Troy. His father—Leonard Troy—was a wealth manager in New York, very into hedge funds and performance socks. His mother, who is Aglaya Simon's aunt, used to be a model back in the '90s—sort of a minimalist icon. Think: no makeup, black-and-white magazine covers, weird poses involving birds."
Amanda leaned against the kitchen doorframe, arms crossed, brows raised. "And you studied this?"
Chris gave her a deadly serious look. "I researched. Aglaya Simon has been my obsession since she freestyled that eight-minute rap about Kant and communal grief on MTV Europe Unplugged."
Jefrey, still pacing near the window, gave a half-sigh, half-laugh. "Of course you have."
Chris went on, undeterred. "Aglaya's dad was a jazz singer who only recorded one album—it's out of print, but you can find rips online if you know where to look. Her mum's in marketing—she worked with that fashion brand that made those horrible lace combat boots everyone wore in 2005."
Amanda interrupted. "Back to Leon. So… Aaron Troy became Leon because...?"
"Branding," Chris said without missing a beat. "His agent told him 'Aaron' didn't have enough silhouette. Leon Troy sounded tragic, poetic, very French New Wave but wounded. 'Lenored A. Forchevelle' was his compromise name for when he wanted to flirt without being recognized."
Jefrey ran a hand through his hair. "So Beth's been spending her afternoons with a guy who's a) changed his name twice, b) belongs to a celebrity dynasty, and c) has a personal mythos more complicated than Greek tragedy."
Chris nodded cheerfully. "And d) possibly about to star in the most emotionally devastating film of the decade. Twilight City is going to wreck people. The trailer made me cry—and it was just clouds."
Amanda was quiet now. She looked at Jefrey, her earlier certainty softened by something almost like worry.
And Jefrey… Jefrey looked out the window again, watching the path where Beth had gone.
Chris, now buzzing with caffeinated fandom energy, clutched his copy of Modern Cultural Economics, which had nothing to do with music or fame—but he'd already bookmarked the title page for autographs.
"So since he's dating her," he said, gesturing vaguely toward where Beth had disappeared, "do you think she could ask him to ask Aglaya and Sanlu to sign my textbook? I mean, they're family. It's only, like, two degrees of separation. That's barely anything!"
Jefrey looked up sharply, his voice cold and cutting in a way that startled even Amanda.
"They're not even really dating," he snapped.
Chris blinked, caught mid-rant, his mouth still half-open.
Amanda looked between the two of them, then placed her mug down quietly and stepped in with that gentler tone she reserved for people she actually cared about.
"Jefrey," she said, "hey."
But Jefrey wasn't looking at her. He was staring at the floor now, jaw clenched, hands balled just a little too tightly in his lap. His usual calm, analytical mask had cracked, and behind it was something raw.
Amanda softened, voice barely above a whisper. "You really like her, don't you."
It wasn't a question.
Chris, finally catching on, slowly folded the textbook shut, suddenly less triumphant and more sheepish.
Jefrey didn't answer, but the silence was an answer.
Amanda leaned against the wall, her expression threaded with something like quiet sympathy. She didn't say I told you so, didn't say you should've said something earlier, didn't say it's too late—though all of those hovered in the air like ghosts.
Instead, she just said, "She doesn't know, Jef."
Jefrey let out a slow breath. "Yeah. I know."
And across the room, Chris, for once, didn't have anything to add.