CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Neither of us sleeps easily that night, both of us too aware of the conversation waiting on the other side of morning, and by the time I find Thane in the kitchen at seven, already dressed, phone in hand, I can tell he's already called Ravinia and asked her to come in person rather than have this conversation over the phone.
"She's driving up from her charter this morning," he says, setting the phone down, something heavy and resolved in his expression. "Should be here by ten."
"Do you want me gone when she gets here?" I ask, because it feels like the right question, even though some selfish part of me doesn't want to hear the answer.
"No." He says it immediately, no hesitation.
"I don't want to hide this from her by having you conveniently absent when she walks in.
That's exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to stop doing.
But I don't think you need to be in the room for the actual conversation either.
That part's mine to have honestly, without an audience. "
I nod, grateful for the clarity of it, and spend the next three hours in a state of low grade, useless anxiety, restocking a med kit that's already fully stocked, reorganizing the same shelf in the garage bay twice, anything to keep my hands busy while I wait.
Ravinia arrives a few minutes before ten, and I catch a glimpse of her through the garage bay window, stepping out of her car with the same composed, unhurried grace she's carried since the first moment I saw her sitting in my chair.
She doesn't look angry, or braced, or anything I might have expected.
She looks like a woman who's already suspected what's coming and has spent the drive here making some kind of peace with it in advance.
Thane meets her at the door, and the two of them disappear into his small back office, the door closing behind them with a quiet, deliberate click that somehow feels louder than any slam could have.
I station myself near the workbench in the garage bay, ostensibly organizing a toolbox that doesn't need organizing, actually just close enough to the hallway that I'll know the second the door opens again.
The minutes stretch long and strange, every small sound from the back office, a raised voice quickly lowered, the scrape of a chair, sending my pulse spiking before I remind myself there's nothing useful I can do from out here except wait.
Gilda finds me there twenty minutes in, wordlessly handing me a mug of coffee I don't ask for and don't refuse either.
"You didn't have to make yourself scarce for this," she says, settling onto a stool nearby, watching me with the particular patience of someone who's spent a lifetime waiting out other people's hard mornings.
"I'm not hiding. I'm just staying out of the way." Which is technically true, though the specific ache of not knowing what's happening behind that closed door makes the distinction feel thin.
"Ravinia's a good woman." Gilda says it plainly, no judgment attached, just fact. "Whatever happens in there, I hope you remember that. This isn't a story where anybody has to be the villain for you to get your ending."
"I know." And I do know it, more fully than I would have a week ago, the memory of Ravinia's honesty at the coffee station, her grace under Dax's joke, sitting alongside everything else I've learned about her since I got back.
"I actually like her, Gilda. That's the strange part.
I came back here braced to hate her, and instead I just feel sorry that any of us are in this position at all. "
Gilda nods, satisfied by the answer in a way that tells me it was some kind of test, and we sit together in comfortable silence after that, both of us watching the hallway, both of us waiting.
It's nearly forty minutes before the office door finally opens, and Ravinia emerges first, composed but visibly tired, the specific exhaustion of someone who's just spent significant emotional effort holding themselves together through something hard.
She doesn't look for me immediately, crossing instead toward the garage bay exit like she needs air, and I find myself moving before I've fully decided to, catching up with her just outside the door.
"Ravinia." Her name comes out uncertain, unsure whether I even have the right to speak to her right now. "I don't know what to say to you that doesn't sound hollow."
She turns to face me, and there's no anger in her expression, just a kind of tired, honest clarity that I recognize because I've worn it myself more than once this past week.
"I already knew," she says simply. "I think I've known since the day you walked into that garage bay soaked through and everyone in the room forgot how to breathe for a full ten seconds. I just needed him to actually say it out loud instead of letting it sit unspoken underneath everything else."
"I'm sorry." It's inadequate, and I say it anyway, because it's true even if it doesn't fix anything.
"Don't be sorry for something that isn't yours to apologize for.
" She wraps her arms around herself against the cold, studying me for a long moment.
"I told him I need time. Not to fight for something that isn't really mine to keep, but to figure out what happens to my charter, to my father's health, to the stability we all actually need regardless of who ends up standing where.
That part isn't about you or him at all. That's mine to sort out."
"Is there anything I can do?" I ask, and I mean it, even though I'm not sure what I'd actually be able to offer.
"Not right now." A small, tired smile, more genuine than I expect. "Maybe eventually. I don't think we have to be enemies, Niamh, whatever else this turns out to be. I'd actually rather we weren't."
She doesn't wait for my response, just turns and walks toward her car, unhurried despite everything, and I watch her go, something complicated and unresolved settling in my chest, equal parts relief and guilt and a grudging respect I didn't expect to feel this strongly for a woman I once dreaded meeting.
Thane appears in the doorway behind me a moment later, watching Ravinia's car pull out of the lot and disappear down the road toward the highway, his expression a mixture of relief and something heavier, the visible cost of a conversation that clearly didn't come easy.
"She's going back to her charter today," he says quietly. "Says she needs space to figure out her own next steps, separate from all of this. I told her to take whatever time she needs."
"How did she take it? Really."
"Better than I deserved. Worse than I wish it had gone.
" He rubs a hand over his face, exhaustion evident in every line of him.
"I told her everything, Niamh. Not just about you.
About three years of choosing duty over honesty, about a chair I never let anyone else sit in for longer than she probably realized.
She deserved the whole truth, not an edited version. "
I don't have a response ready for that, so I just step closer, resting a hand against his chest, feeling the unsteady rhythm of his breathing beneath my palm.
He covers my hand with his own, and we stand there together in the cold doorway, watching the empty road where Ravinia's car has already disappeared, both of us aware that whatever comes next, at least it's finally honest.
"What happens with the charter now," I ask, quieter, aware that the personal relief of this morning doesn't erase the larger, structural problem still sitting underneath it. "Odric's health, the peace between the two of you. That doesn't just resolve itself because the engagement ended."
"No," he agrees, something more sober settling over his features.
"It doesn't. I don't have that part figured out yet.
I know Gunnar's going to want a plan by tonight, and I know Odric's people aren't going to be forgiving about this once the news reaches them properly.
But I couldn't keep building a peace on top of a lie, Niamh.
Not anymore. Whatever it costs to fix this honestly has to be better than what it was costing all of us to keep pretending. "
I don't have an easy answer for that either, so I simply lean into him instead, letting the solid, steady warmth of him ground me the way the coffee and Gilda's quiet company did earlier, and for a moment we just stand there together, the cold morning air settling around us, both of us aware that today's honesty has bought them time, not certainty, and that whatever comes next will need to be earned all over again.