"You look well, Hakan," Erlik murmured again, softer this time. Just for me. His thumb brushed the skin just below my ear.
Something stung. Brief and bright. I flinched — the only crack in the mask, lasting less than a second — and by the time I registered the pain, his hand was already dropping away.
"A father's blessing," he said softly. "At a difficult time."
Then he stepped back into the colonnade's deeper shadow, and was gone.
I stood with blood in my mouth from where I'd bitten through my cheek, the fading sting behind my ear already dissolving into nothing. Already being forgotten. Already slipping beneath the surface of my awareness like a stone sinking into dark water.
Beside me, Kaan finally exhaled.
"Did he touch you?"
"My shoulder. Just my shoulder."
Kaan's eyes searched my face, my neck, the skin behind my ear. Looking for something. But the sting had already faded, and there was nothing to see.
"Watch yourself," he said quietly.
I nodded. And did not think about the fading sting behind my left ear, because it was nothing.
Because it had to be nothing.
* * *
They left the next morning.
Nesilhan held Ada for a long time at the Academy gates, her arms tight around Ada's shoulders, and when she pulled back her golden eyes were bright with tears she didn't try to hide.
"I lost my mother young," she said quietly. "I know what this emptiness feels like. And I know nothing I say will fill it." She pressed her forehead to Ada's. "But you have people who love you. Don't forget that when the grief tries to convince you otherwise."
Ada couldn't speak. She nodded, and Nesilhan squeezed her hands once before stepping back to Kaan's side.
Kaan studied Ada for a moment, then gave a single nod — not sympathy, but acknowledgment. The kind of respect one gives an equal walking into a war.
"The Light Court just lost its god," he said flatly. "Every lord on that council is already calculating how to fill the void. Don't let them move faster than you."
Ada straightened. Her jaw set the way it did when the princess in her woke up and shouldered the weight that the grieving daughter wanted to set down.
"I won't."
He clasped my forearm last. His grip was iron, and his voice dropped low enough that only I could hear.
"I was surprised to see our father at the funeral," Kaan said.
"Him showing up here might have been political," I mused, although I wasn't convinced.
"He never does anything without purpose, Hakan. If he came to that funeral, he came for a reason. If he spoke to Ada, he wanted something. And if he spoke to you —" Kaan searched my face. "Be careful. With yourself. With her. If anything changes — in your magic, in your mind, in how the shadows feel when you call them — you tell me. Swear it."
"I swear it."
"Good." He held my arm a moment longer, something unresolved flickering behind his expression. Then he released me, turned, and the shadows opened for him and Nesilhan like a curtain, swallowing them both into darkness and distance.
I watched the space where they'd been and felt a cold finger trace down my spine that had nothing to do with the morning air.
That was weeks ago.
I opened my eyes. The mirror stared back. The rune behind my ear — behind my left ear, right where his thumb had brushed — glinted faintly in the morning light.
