chapter 5

Elara's POV:

By the time I finally escaped the gallery, the sun was setting over Hyde Park, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold that reminded me of the Rothko upstairs.

I found a bench near the Serpentine and sat, pulling out my phone and staring at the card Mr. Hale had given me. It sat on the bench beside me, a physical reminder of the choice I was facing.

I thought about that sketch—the one born from my own grief, my own longing—and then about what Hale had said: a four-year-old boy, struggling with selective mutism.

Part of me wanted to meet Cassian, to see if those eyes I'd imagined bore any resemblance to reality. But another part hesitated, uncertain why the prospect unsettled me so much.

I thought about the empty wall in my studio, about the child I'd lost four years ago, about all the ways grief could reshape a person until they were unrecognizable even to themselves.

My fingers moved before I could talk myself out of it, typing out a message with shaking hands: I'll try.

After that, I just pocketed my phone and sat in the gathering darkness, watching the last light fade from the sky and wondering what I'd just agreed to.

The walk back to the Ashford townhouse took longer than usual.

I moved slowly through the familiar streets of Kensington, in no hurry to return to that house of disappointed expectations and barely concealed resentment.

When I finally climbed the stairs to my attic studio, it was nearly nine o'clock, and the house below was quiet, Richard and Lorraine presumably retired to their separate corners to nurse their separate grievances.

I dropped my bag by the door and moved to my easel, where a fresh canvas waited in the dim light. I didn't turn on the overhead lights, preferring the softer glow of the single lamp by my work table.

I picked up a piece of charcoal and began to sketch, letting my hand move without conscious thought.

The image that emerged was a small figure, a child's silhouette standing in an empty room, one hand pressed against a window that looked out onto a garden full of roses.

The details came quickly, easily, as if they'd been waiting inside me all along: the curve of the child's shoulders, the tilt of his head, the way his fingers splayed against the glass as if reaching for something just out of reach.

Halfway through, my hand faltered.

I set down the charcoal and stepped back, my heart hammering. This was dangerous territory, the kind of emotional minefield I'd been carefully avoiding for years.

Working with children was one thing—other people's children, children who were alive and present and in need of help. But allowing myself to feel that old grief again, to open the door I'd so carefully locked... that was something else entirely.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Dominic: Marcus will contact you tomorrow to arrange a meeting. Thank you for agreeing to this.

I stared at the words, at the formal tone that couldn't quite hide the relief beneath it, and felt something tighten in my chest—though whether it was release or the weight of a new obligation, I couldn't say. But I'd agreed to this, and there was no turning back now.

I picked up my phone and typed a final message: What time tomorrow?

The response came immediately: Ten AM. Marcus will send a car.

I set down my phone and returned to my easel.

The sketch of the child waited in the lamplight, unfinished but somehow complete, a promise and a warning all at once. I picked up my charcoal and added one more detail: a second figure, barely visible in the shadows behind the child, reaching toward him with one hand outstretched.

Then I set down my tools and went to bed, knowing that sleep would be a long time coming, knowing that tomorrow would change everything, knowing that I'd already crossed a line I couldn't uncross.

But that was tomorrow's problem. Tonight, I lay in my narrow bed and listened to the old house settle around me, and tried not to think about cold eyes and lonely children and the weight of promises I wasn't sure I could keep.