Like magnets dragged apart for seven years and suddenly released, the attraction only grew fiercer the moment they were out of each other’s orbit. Every quiet moment the next morning—whether Wriothesley was staring at his greenhouse or Clorinde was staring at her unopened mail—brought the same restless thought: I want to see her/him again. Already.

  It felt inevitable. Cosmic. As though the universe, having waited so long, now refused to grant them even a single day of reprieve.

  The awkwardness of their first day above ground should have been enough to cool things down, to let the inevitable pull between them settle into something safer, slower. Instead it did the opposite.

  Wriothesley wrote the letter before breakfast.

  He sat at his desk, pen in hand, staring at the blank page as though it had personally offended him. Every honest sentence he tried to write felt too raw, too revealing. So he did what he always did when emotions threatened to overflow: he built a wall.

  The final draft was crisp, formal, almost painfully professional.

  Champion Clorinde,

  Thank you for yesterday. The surface air was… refreshing. The company even more so. I appreciate the time you took to show me the changes in Fontaine.

  I hope your duties remain light today.

  Regards,

  Wriothesley

  Duke of Meropide

  He sealed it before he could second-guess himself, handed it to the courier, and went back to pretending he hadn’t just spent ten minutes agonizing over the word “appreciate.”

  Clorinde received it at noon.

  She read it once. Then twice. Then folded it carefully, set it on her desk, and stared at it like it had betrayed her.

  The tone was polite. Courteous. Colleague-to-colleague. Exactly the kind of letter one might send after a routine meeting.

  And that was the problem.

  It felt nothing like the man who had brushed a droplet of sweat from her throat, who had almost kissed her in a sunlit alley, who had kissed her hand like she was something precious and then called her beautiful under the street lamps.

  This letter felt distant. Guarded. As though he had deliberately placed a wall of ink and formality between them the moment the sun had set.

  She sat on the edge of her bed, elbows on knees, face in hands.

  “Why does this hurt?” she whispered to the empty room. “Why do I even care?”

  She told herself it was irrational. She was the Champion Duelist. She had faced down opponents who wanted her dead, stood before the Oratrice without flinching, rebuilt her entire life around discipline and duty. A single formal letter should not have the power to make her chest ache like this.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  And yet.

  She spent the entire day in her room—door locked, curtains half-drawn, replaying every moment of the previous day against the cold precision of those typed lines.

  “Why do I have to be bothered with this?” she muttered at one point, pacing. “This is pathetic. This is so unlike me.”

  She placed her thumb where he touched, replayed his thumb on her skin in her mind. It felt different. The almost-kiss. The hand kiss. The word “beautiful.”

  Then she reread the letter.

  And something inside her—small, fragile, newly awakened—closed like a steel trap.

  She decided then and there: she would never allow herself to feel this way again. Whatever this fluttering, aching, embarrassing thing was, she would lock it away. She had survived seven years without him; she could survive the rest of her life with only friendship. If that was all he wanted, that was all she would give.

  She closed her heart. Or tried to.

  Navia arrived that evening with a basket of macarons and zero patience for Clorinde’s brooding.

  She took one look at Clorinde’s face—pale, set, eyes shadowed—and sighed dramatically.

  “Look at your face. Let me guess… He sent a polite thank-you note and now you’re convinced he regrets everything.”

  Clorinde didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

  Navia sat beside her on the bed.

  “I think he’s scared, Clorinde. Not of you—but of himself. You told me he spent seven years convincing himself he didn’t deserve anything good. Then he stepped outside for one day and there it was. You. The sun. The possibilities. Of course he panicked and wrote like a bureaucrat. It’s his version of hiding behind a shield.”

  Clorinde stared at the folded letter on her desk and nodded slightly in agreement.

  “I guess he doesn’t want to ruin what we have,” she said quietly. “That’s all it is.”

  Navia reached over and flicked her forehead gently.

  “Or maybe he wants more than friendship so badly he’s terrified of saying it wrong and losing what little he already has.”

  Clorinde closed her eyes.

  “I’m done feeling like this,” she said. “I won’t chase someone who puts up walls the second things get real.”

  Navia sighed again—longer this time—but didn’t push.

  Down in Meropide, Wriothesley was faring worse.

  He had written the formal letter to contain everything: the way his heart had slammed against his ribs when she dragged him from the café, the almost-kiss that still made his pulse race when he remembered it, the overwhelming need to pull her close and never let go again. He had dammed it all behind courtesy and distance because the alternative—writing what he really felt—terrified him more than any prison sentence ever had.

  Sigewinne found him in his office that evening, staring at the same sprig of mint like it held the answers.

  “You wrote her a thank-you letter like she was a visiting inspector?” the Melusine gasped without preamble.

  Wriothesley winced.

  “I was being polite.”

  “It was a wall,” Sigewinne corrected. “And she’s going to think you’re slamming the door in her face.”

  He dragged both hands through his hair.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “I spent seven years convincing myself I didn’t deserve anything. Then I step outside for one afternoon and suddenly everything I ever wanted is standing right there in a blue dress looking at me like I’m still worth something. I panicked.”

  Sigewinne hopped onto the edge of his desk.

  “You’re allowed to panic. But you’re not allowed to punish her for it.”

  He looked at her—really looked.

  “A part of me is still down here,” he said quietly. “The part that thinks freedom is something other people get. Not me.”

  Sigewinne reached over and patted his scarred hand.

  “Then let the rest of you go get her. Before she convinces herself you don’t want her at all.”

  He stared at the mint leaves.

  They trembled slightly under the hydro lamp.

  Somewhere above, in a quiet room in the Palais, Clorinde stared at the same folded letter and told herself she was fine with friendship.

  Somewhere below, Wriothesley stared at a single plant and realized he wasn’t.

  The universe, having pulled them together once, was not yet finished.

  But both of them—stubborn, guarded, terrified—were still standing on opposite sides of a wall neither had the courage to tear down.

  Yet.