The library door stands ajar, morning bright beyond it. I stop where the old clock sits, and the floor doesn't creak. Sage stands at the window with her hand on the glass as if the forest can answer her questions. Her honey-blonde hair falls loose around her face, slightly mussed from sleep and untouched by a brush. She’s wearing a thick pink sweater and black leggings that show the strength in her legs, proof that she’s not as breakable as she first seemed. Vega noses her wrist, then sinks to the rug at her feet with a contented sigh that almost embarrasses me.
Anya doesn't rush in. She lets the silence breathe before asking, “May I join you?”
Sage startles but nods. “You must be Luka's sister,” she remarks, turning from the window to face her.
“And you're the woman who keeps my brother awake.” Anya smiles. “We should be friends.”
Sage huffs a tiny laugh. “Is that how it works in your family?”
“In our family nothing works the way it should.” Anya's voice softens. “Would you like coffee? I'll get it. He always makes it too strong.”
“I had some. Thank you.”
They don't sit right away. They stand together in the bright square of morning and look out at the tree line as if it can settle them. When they finally sit, it’s across from each other at the low table, the pastries Anya brought arranged within easy reach, and the napkins folded with the same precise care our mother once insisted on.
Vega positions himself between them like a sentry who prefers the company of women.
“Has he always been like this?” Sage asks after a careful pause. “Controlled. Cold.”
Anya smiles with genuine affection that surprises me. “No. He learned to be this way. Some of it because he wanted to. Most of it because he didn't have another choice.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Sage’s mouth tightens, her expression hovering between doubt and challenge.
“It would be easier if he were a simple villain.” Anya leans back. “You could hate him and feel clean. He would let you. He's very generous that way.”
Sage studies the pastry she hasn't touched. “Generous isn't the word I would choose.”
“What word would you choose?” Anya asks, her tone light but genuinely curious.
“Necessary.” The room becomes quiet enough that I hear the tick of the old clock.
Anya folds her hands in her lap. “My mother died when I was twenty-one. He was twenty-seven. Our father had already begun to fail, though he hid it. We didn't know what this life would take yet. He learned quickly. I pretended to help and cried in the bathroom until my eyes turned red.”
Sage's expression eases. “I'm sorry.”
“So am I. It's a long time ago now, except it's not.”
Sage nods like she knows exactly what that means. “My mother died three years ago. Some days it feels like yesterday. Some days it feels like I invented her to make my life make sense.”
Anya leans forward. “You have your sister.”
“Yes, I have Hope,” Sage says gently, her voice carrying the quiet conviction of the reason she’s still alive. “She needs me. She has seizures and I can't let her live by herself. I had to make the café work. Her medicine is expensive. I didn't have another plan.”
“You love her in a way that will make you do anything.” Anya's voice holds understanding now. “You'll bend the world if you have to. You'll steal the air out of your own lungs if it helps her breathe.”
Sage's eyes shine but don't spill. “Yes.”
“Then you understand my brother. Not the details. Not the men, the debts, or the history, but the impulse is the same. He's a man who has been told his entire life that other people's lives depend on what he does.”
Sage looks down. A hand lifts and then lowers to Vega’s head. “He thinks I'm a threat.”
“He thinks you're a risk. It's not the same. It feels the same, though.”
Sage presses her lips together. “He took me from my home.”
“He did. He also took you from a man who would have used you to hurt him. That's not an excuse. It's a fact that exists beside the hurt, not in place of it.”
I breathe out and tell myself to stand still. It's hard to hear my choices filtered through a voice that doesn't frame them as orders or calculations. Anya isn't defending me. She's laying me out on the table like a weapon that a person can see from all sides. It's very Anya. It's also effective. Sage doesn’t look forgiving. She looks as if she understands that forgiveness is complicated.
