I press my palms against my knees, forcing them steady.
I’ll ask Blackwell directly. About the conference paper. The sudden shift in language. The careful emphasis on control. If there’s a reasonable explanation, I’ll hear it.
And if there isn’t…
I stand, the room tilting slightly, and stare at the wall above my desk—once a map of possibility, now a map of everything I could lose.
My shower does little to quiet the dissonance gathering in my chest. The day began warm and hopeful, the memory of last night’s perfectly imperfect dancing still soft around the edges.
Now it feels like I’ve stepped onto a path whose shape I can finally see.
And it’s leading somewhere I never wanted to go.
Chapter Fifteen
Sophia
The shower helped quiet the panic. Not completely—nothing ever does that—but enough.
I dress. Make coffee. Organize my bag with mechanical precision. My body moves through the familiar routines, but my mind keeps circling the same narrow orbit.
Last night: lantern light, music, Flavius’s hands steady at my waist. Dancing. Joy. The promise of something good.
This morning: Blackwell’s email. “Under the right names.” “Preliminary contributions.” The shape of something wrong.
The two sensations, joy and dread, sit side by side in my chest without resolving, as if they’re both true but neither knows how to take precedence.
I should tell Flavius.
The thought arrives fully formed, deceptively simple. But when I imagine actually doing it—standing in front of him, watching his face change—the calculation fractures.
If I tell him, he will listen. Completely. He always does.
And then he will shift—not away, never away, but toward me. He’ll brace. He’ll start thinking in contingencies and protections and strategies, the way he does when someone he cares about is threatened.
Whatever this is between us won’t feel like two people choosing each other in open space.
It will feel as though I’ve handed him a burden.
So, I decide to wait.
When I step outside, the world is bright. Too bright. Birds call to each other in the trees and the sanctuary is already busy with volunteers moving equipment.
I see him across the courtyard.
My body reacts before my mind can intervene—muscles loosening, breath easing, an instinctive orientation toward him like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
Then I stop.
Because I can’t cross the courtyard carrying two truths I haven’t sorted yet.
He spots me. His posture changes immediately—softening, attention narrowing. He starts toward me, then stops when he reads whatever is on my face.
We lift our hands in greeting, a small mirrored gesture that would look ordinary to anyone watching.
Neither of us crosses the distance.
Later that afternoon, I nearly collide with him on the walkway between buildings.
