Weeks slipped by in the strange, suspended rhythm that had become their new normal. Clorinde’s visits to the Fortress grew more frequent—not as formal delegations of the Champion Duelist, but as quiet arrivals through the private elevator, always announced only to Wriothesley and Sigewinne. She came in the late hours when the administrative level was hushed, bringing small things from the surface: a tin of fruit-infused coffee beans from Café Lutece, a single perfect macaron wrapped in tissue, a sprig of lavender clipped from a garden near the Palais. Each offering felt like a bridge—tiny, deliberate steps across the years.

  Sigewinne helped without ever seeming to push. She would appear with a tray of herbal tea “for the both of you,” linger just long enough to drop a gentle comment—“The sky was so clear today, Your Grace. Almost indecently blue”—and then vanish again, leaving the two of them alone with the weight of what was being asked.

  Wriothesley resisted at first.

  “The outside world was never kind to me,” he said one evening, staring at the small greenhouse as though the plants held answers. “Monsters that turned into my parents… turned me into one. Why would I want to go back to that?”

  Clorinde sat across from him, knees drawn up on the chair in a way she hadn’t done since they were children. “Because it’s different now,” she answered quietly. “Because you’re different now. And because some parts of it were kind. You just forgot.”

  He looked at her then—really looked—and the protest died on his lips.

  What finally cracked the last of his resistance wasn’t logic, wasn’t duty, wasn’t even Sigewinne’s persistent optimism.

  It was her.

  It was the memory of Clor—small, stubborn Clor—handing him half a loaf of bread in a peculiar alley and telling him stealing wasn’t the answer. It was the way she’d laughed when he brewed terrible tea and called it “calming.” It was the way she’d bandaged his scrapes in the rain and promised always. It was every letter she had sent, every unanswered plea she had refused to abandon.

  Whenever he thought of meeting her outside—of stepping into sunlight with her waiting, of seeing her silhouette against real fountains instead of recycled hydro mist—something surged inside him. A feeling so sharp and bright it almost hurt. Exhilaration. Longing. A wild, fluttering hope he hadn’t allowed himself since he was ten years old. Emotions he had locked away so thoroughly he’d forgotten they could still live in his chest.

  He didn’t say any of it aloud. He couldn’t. Not yet.

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  But one night, after Clorinde had left and Sigewinne had gone to make her final rounds, he sat at his desk with a fresh sheet of paper.

  The letter was short.

  Clor,

  Is the fountain at the middle of the Court still there? The one with the weird hydro vines that look like they’re dancing?

  When I go outside—if I go outside—I want it to be the first thing I see.

  We can meet there.

  And you have to treat me. Fair’s fair.

  —Wrio

  He sealed it before he could overthink the jest at the end, before he could cross out the “if” and replace it with “when.”

  The reply came back almost immediately—faster than any letter ever had. A Melusine courier surfaced less than a day later, breathless and beaming, and handed him the envelope still warm from Clorinde’s hands.

  He opened it alone in his office.

  Wrio,

  Yes. The fountain is still there. The vines have grown wilder, but they still dance when the light hits them right.

  I’ll be waiting. Same time we used to meet in the alley—midday.

  And of course I’ll treat you. You always said I owed you a full loaf someday.

  See you soon.

  —Clor

  He read it twice. Then folded it carefully and placed it in the drawer with all the others—except this time he left the drawer open, as though the letter deserved to breathe.

  Clorinde could have gone to him directly after receiving his letter. She could have taken the elevator down that very afternoon and said yes in person, watched his face when she agreed. But she didn’t.

  She hesitated.

  Navia’s words from weeks earlier echoed unbidden: “So what should you wear when he finally comes up?”

  Clorinde had brushed it off then, cheeks warm, insisting it was nothing. But now the question refused to leave her alone.

  She stood in front of her wardrobe that evening, fingers trailing over the familiar black training tunics, the Champion coat with its silver trim, the practical boots she wore for every duel. All of it was armor. All of it was her.

  But this day would be different.

  Special.

  The day Wriothesley stepped out of the shell he had built around himself—the day he chose the surface over the depths—was the day everything between them would shift. She felt it in her bones. And suddenly the idea of meeting him in the same severe black she always wore felt… inadequate. Not enough.

  She closed the wardrobe door without choosing anything.

  The blush that rose to her cheeks was immediate and infuriating. Typical Clorinde—disciplined, stoic, unflappable—reduced to staring at her reflection like a flustered teenager because a boy she had known since childhood had finally agreed to meet her under open sky.

  “Why did I suddenly remember that?” she muttered to the empty room, pressing cool fingers to her heated face.

  She couldn’t contain the excitement bubbling beneath her composure. It felt dangerous. Reckless. Like something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since the alley days.

  But she also couldn’t deny it.

  This wasn’t just a reunion.

  It was a beginning.

  And for the first time in years, Clorinde let herself wonder what it might feel like to stand beside him in sunlight—not as Champion and Duke, not as rivals or almost-lovers who had never spoken the word—but simply as Clor and Wrio.

  Two people who had waited long enough.

  She opened the wardrobe again.

  This time, she didn’t close it right away.