The moon lifted above Hawthorne like a pale, watchful eye, its light spilling across the soot-darkened streets. Inside the boarding house, Aria sat at the small wooden table in her tiny room, her fingers trembling around a chipped cup of tea gone cold.
She couldn't stop replaying the evening.
The way Kaelan had stood not too close, not too bold, but near enough that the air between them had seemed to hum.
No one had ever spoken to her as he had.No one had ever looked at her as though he saw past her worn dress, past the grime on her hands, past the poverty that wrapped itself around her like a second skin.
Yet somehow, he did.
And it terrified her.
A Mother's Warning
Her mother's voice echoed in her memory;
"The world is not kind to women who reach above their station, Aria. Hunger may kill slowly, but heartbreak kills all at once."
Aria placed the cup down with a soft clink.
She should have walked away from Kaelan the moment he first spoke to her outside the mill gates. She should have turned her back, hardened her heart, and swallowed whatever fragile hope tried to rise inside her. But when she tried to imagine a world without him waiting in the morning, her chest ached.
Deeply.Sharply.Wrongfully.
As though something ancient and half-remembered was being torn apart.
The Strange Dream
That night, sleep came late and brought with it a dream that shook her.
She stood beneath a burning sky, surrounded by smoke and ash. The ground trembled beneath her feet, and distant screams echoed across the wind.
She searched the chaos frantically, calling a name she did not recognize.
Kael! KAEL!
Then she saw him, running toward her, hand outstretched, eyes filled with desperation.
She reached for him... And woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat.
Her chest heaved as she clutched the thin blanket, trying to steady her breath. The dream felt too real, too vivid, too familiar.
Why had she called his name as if she had known him all her life?
Why had he run to her like a man trying to reach something precious before it slipped away?
She pressed her palm to her forehead.
This is foolishness, she whispered to the empty room. Just foolishness, but her heart did not believe her, neither did the lingering echo of the dream.
Kaelan's room in the inn on the northern side of Hawthorne was far nicer than Aria's boarding room yet it felt colder, emptier, and unbearably quiet.
He sat at his writing desk, hands buried in his hair, his lamp burning low as midnight crept past.
He should have been finishing his reports.He should have been drafting the petition for safer working conditions.He should have been analyzing machinery faults and union grievances.
But all he could see, over and over was Aria turning back to look at him.
That moment had lodged itself inside him like a splinter too deep to remove.
His voice when he spoke her name earlier…Her hesitation when she met his eyes…The softness in her face when she finally gazed at him without walls…
He closed his eyes and exhaled.
Why do I feel like I've known you forever? he whispered to the empty room.
His heart reacted painfully, tightening in his chest.
As if answering.
A Sudden Flood of Memory or Madness?
Without warning, an image flashed in his mind—unbidden, impossible:
A candlelit room.A woman with gentle eyes.Her hand in his.Her lips whispering—
Find me again.
Kaelan jolted upright, breath shuddering out of him.
He pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to steady the whirlwind inside.
The image vanished but the aching familiarity remained.
This is madness, he told himself. Exhaustion. Nothing more.
But that wasn't true.
Not when the memory felt more real than half the things he had lived.
Not when every instinct in his body pulled him toward Aria with the force of something older than logic.
The next morning, Aria tried to leave early. She wrapped her shawl tighter, left her hair unbraided, and walked quickly toward the mill, hoping to avoid the one person whose presence scattered her sense like wind through loose grain.
But when she reached the gates, Kaelan was already there.
Waiting.
As though he had been standing there long before dawn even touched the sky.
Her breath caught.
Good morning, Aria, he said softly.
He looked tired dark circles under his eyes but more alive than she'd ever seen him.
Good morning, she replied, trying to keep her voice steady.
They stood there in a silence thick as fog.
Kaelan hesitated, then spoke again, quiet, but with an honesty he couldn't hide:
I, worried about you last night.
Aria's pulse jumped.No need. I managed well enough.
I know, he said. But I still worried.
She looked away, unsure what to do with the warmth those simple words kindled inside her.
He stepped closer, not enough to touch, but enough to close the distance of a breath.
Aria, he murmured, I keep feeling as though I've...
She suddenly lifted a hand, stopping him.
Don't, she whispered. Please.
Kaelan froze.
Her eyes glistened not with fear, but with something more fragile.
If you say something kind, she said, voice trembling, I don't know if I'll be able to forget it.
The confession struck him like a blow.
He wanted to tell her everything, that he felt drawn to her, that he dreamed of her, that her name lived on his tongue like an echo from another life.
But he swallowed every word. Because the emotion in her eyes was too raw to touch.
I won't say anything you don't wish to hear, he said gently.
Her breath quivered.
Okay, she whispered, turning away.
Kaelan watched her walk into the mill.
He did not follow, but he knew deeply, painfully, undeniably that something had shifted between them.
Something neither of them could run from now.
Something the world itself seemed to hold its breath over.