I push through the crowd, through the scent of perfume and champagne and too much laughter. I finally make it to the buffet, blinking fast, willing the tears not to fall.
“Are you okay?”
I turn and find Christian standing beside me, watching me with a kind of quiet caution.
I blink at him, stunned for a second. I open my mouth, about to lie, like I always do, but the words don’t come. Instead, I just shake my head.
He nods once, as if he expected it. “The chicken is really good,” he says.
Then, without waiting, he snatches my plate and starts piling food onto it.
“Is it Kai?” he asks, handing the plate back to me.
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
“Come on,” he says. “I want to show you something.”
I hesitate. “Christian, I don’t think—”
“Just trust me.”
He’s already moving, weaving through the crowd. And I follow, still holding the overstuffed plate, because I don’t know what else to do.
We reach the stairs and start climbing. One flight, then another. The house is quieter up here. Dimmer. We turn a few corners, past heavy doors and old portraits, until finally, he stops in front of a room and pushes the door open.
It’s a study, one where the air smells like old paper and cedar. And there’s a large, cluttered desk by the window.
Christian walks over to it, opens a drawer, and starts pulling things out carefully.
Finally, he straightens, holding something that looks like…
a book?
It’s worn around the edges, the spine cracked but cared for.
He turns to me. “What was it that Kai called you?Soreya?”
I nod slowly.
Christian flips through a few pages, then stops. His fingers trace the top of the page before he tilts the book toward me.
It’s a poem. The title is scrawled across the top in fading ink:Soreya.
“Irina Steele was a poet,” he says. “This is one of her unfinished poems. She never got the chance to publish it.”
Soreya
I dreamed her name before I knew it,
soft as snowmelt, sharp as bone.
She came when the clocks unspoke themselves
and the moon turned to stone.
She came when the walls began whispering,
when thought unravelled like thread.
