Tessa shifted at his side and glanced at him. “Papa,” she said softly, then paused, her eyes darting between him and Madeline with sudden, perceptive curiosity.
Henry noticed.
He straightened, schooling his expression into something deliberately casual. “Tessa,” he said, as though remembering something important, “you never showed me the picture you were working on this morning.”
Her face brightened. “The one with the garden?”
“That one,” he said. “I should very much like to see it.” She hesitated only a moment before nodding, her grip on Wilhelm loosening as she turned. “It’s upstairs.”
“Then I believe,” Henry said, offering his arm with exaggerated seriousness, “that we are being kept from important business.” Tessa nodded decisively, casting Wilhelm one last look before taking Henry’s hand. “I’ll be right back,” she informed him, as though granting permission rather than asking it.
Wilhelm smiled faintly. “I’ll be here.”
Henry ushered her toward the door, pausing just long enough to throw Wilhelm a knowing look over Tessa’s head, his expression unmistakably satisfied.
Wilhelm watched them go, the weight of Tessa’s small presence still lingering against his chest even after the door closed softly behind her. A faint, disbelieving smile touched his mouth, the kind that came only after fear had burned itself out and left something gentler in its wake.
Silence settled around them, but this time it was something reverent, heavy with everything they had survived and everything neither of them dared to say yet.
Wilhelm locked eyes with Madeline. He felt it then, the pull of her, unmistakable and quiet, drawing him toward her even as he remained seated, a gravity that did not demand but simply existed.
“You’re staring,” he said softly, his voice low, threaded with something close to wonder.
She swallowed, her throat moving visibly. “So are you.”
The admission hung between them, simple and devastating in its honesty.
Wilhelm rose, careful despite himself, the movement slower than instinct would have liked, though the faint protest from his shoulder barely registered once he was upright. All of his attention was fixed on her now, on the way her breath hitched as he moved, on the subtle shift of her weight as though she were bracing for something she wanted and feared in equal measure.
She crossed the distance between them in two quick steps and wrapped her arms around him without hesitation, pressing herself against him with the certainty that stole what little air remained in his lungs. She fit there as though she always had, as though his body had been shaped with this exact moment in mind.
The solid sensation of hers sent a sharp rush through him, dizzying in its intensity. His arms came around her instinctively, one hand settling at the small of her back, the other drawing her closer, careful without meaning to be, as though some part of him still feared she might break if he held her too tightly.
She tipped her face up and kissed him.
It was soft at first, tentative, her lips brushing his as though she were testing the truth of him, confirming that he was not a dream conjured by terror or longing. Her mouth trembled slightly beneath his, and when she pressed closer, her fingers spread against his back, clinging with quiet desperation.
Something fierce coiled low in his chest, protective and possessive and achingly tender all at once.
Her hand brushed his injured shoulder by accident, and he hissed softly before he could stop himself.
She froze instantly, pulling back as though burned, horror flashing across her face. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed, her hands hovering helplessly between them. “Wilhelm, I didn’t mean to?—”
He caught her wrist before she could retreat, tugging her gently back against him. “Do not apologize,” he said firmly.
“But I hurt you?—”
“You did not,” he replied, sliding his hand to her waist, anchoring her there. “And even if you had, I would not mind.”
Her eyes searched his face, uncertain. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“I should say exactly that,” he murmured. “Because I am very much alive, and very much aware of you, and I will not have you treating me as something fragile.”
A faint flush crept up her neck. She nodded, then hesitated, her hands lowering slowly from his shoulders.
“There is something I need to say,” she said.
Wilhelm stilled at once, sensing the shift in her before she even spoke. He had learned her tells too well—the way her shoulders tightened, the way her breath grew careful, measured, as though she were bracing for a blow she expected to land.
