Epilogue #3
Then Aoi looked toward the relics and frowned slightly. “Did we light the burner already?”
Rafael’s hand moved gently at her waist. “We did, darling. Last week.”
She seemed worried then, small and sudden. “I don’t remember the song.”
Rafe stepped forward. “You remembered enough.”
Aoi looked at him, and some of the worry eased. “Did I?”
“Yes.”
Rafael kissed her temple. “Shall we sit for a bit?”
She nodded, then looked back at me. The Fog had shifted her partly elsewhere, but she squeezed my fingers once before letting go.
Rafael guided her toward a quieter sitting area near the windows, his hand steady, his face full of the kind of love that didn’t need the easy parts to stay.
Rafe stood beside me, silent, and I took his hand again.
Later, after speeches and champagne and a small argument between Cressler and Moira over whether Max could be listed as a consultant on internal training materials, Rafe and I escaped to the terrace.
The evening was cool. The gardens stretched below, dark and silver under the moon. The estate no longer intimidated me the way it had at first. It was still enormous. Still old money and old magic. But now I could see the living parts too.
The place where Aoi liked tea.
The path Rafe took when he needed to think.
The lower stretch of grass where Max had discovered the joy of carrying sticks large enough to qualify for permits.
Rafe rested one hand at my back. “Tired?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go inside?”
“Not yet.”
Max lowered himself between us with a sigh and set his head on Rafe’s shoe.
“He’s had a hard night,” I said.
“He accepted seven compliments and one piece of salmon.”
“Heroism takes many forms.”
Rafe looked out over the gardens, then back at me. “Are you happy?”
The question was quiet and careful. Very him.
I leaned against the stone rail, the locket warm beneath my fingers. “Yes.”
His shoulders eased.
That was what I loved most now, maybe. Not that he had become soft. He hadn’t. Rafe was still exacting, serious, frequently unbearable in rooms with poor planning, and capable of making a waiter apologize for someone else’s mistake through silence alone.
But with me, he let things reach him.
He no longer treated tenderness like an argument he had to win.
He stepped closer. “I have been considering something.”
“That sentence has historically preceded real estate, medical care, and soup.”
“This is related to real estate.”
“Rafe.”
“Not buying your building.”
“Look at you. Growth.”
His thumb moved once against my back. “A place. Eventually. When you want. Somewhere closer to your work and Avery, with enough room for Max, your books, Octavia’s scarves, my shirts, and any furniture you insist has a soul.”
I stared at him. He kept going. Rafe handled vulnerability the way some people handled contracts: thoroughly, before anyone could object.
“Not instead of your life. Not my estate swallowing yours. Something we choose together.”
“You’re asking if I want to live with you,” I said, my voice cracking a little.
“Yes.”
“Eventually.”
“Yes.”
I looked out over the gardens because if I looked at him too long, I was going to cry, then I’d have to lie and blame allergies because I was a professional now.
“Okay,” I said.
Rafe went very still. “Okay?”
“Eventually. Yes. But I get veto power over anything with more than three fountains.”
“Reasonable.”
“And Max gets ground-floor access.”
“Obviously.”
“And I’m bringing the blue chair.”
His expression shifted. “That chair is unsound.”
“The chair has been through a lot.”
“It creaks when no one is sitting in it.”
“It’s expressive.”
“I think it’s haunted.”
“Then it’ll fit right in with your family relics.”
He looked pained. “That was unfair.” Then he laughed. Quietly. Briefly. So real it went straight through me.
I rose on my toes and kissed him.
Below us, Max snored.
Inside, people were still celebrating the relics, the initiative, the official return of things stolen and scattered and mislabeled by people who had assumed possession was the same as belonging.
Out here, under the cool night sky, Rafe’s hand settled warm at my waist, and my locket rested over my heart, holding the two creatures who had ruined my life most thoroughly and improved it beyond repair.
For a long time, I had thought survival meant staying useful enough to be kept.
I had been wrong.
Sometimes love found you because of a thrift store necklace.
Sometimes it arrived in a terrifying suit and demanded it back.
Sometimes it looked like a dog leaning his old bones against your leg, a woman in a dress stepping into a room that finally knew her name, and a dragon learning that making space for someone did not mean sacrifice.
Rafe drew back just enough to look at me. “What are you thinking?”
“That this is a lot.”
“It is.”
“And that I want it.”
His eyes warmed. “Good.”
“Also that Max is definitely getting salmon breath on your shoe.”
Rafe looked down. Max, asleep and shameless, huffed against the polished leather.
“He’s earned it,” Rafe said.
Smiling, I leaned into him and let myself believe in the life opening around us.
Messy, bright, complicated, and ours.