POV: Seraphine
The flower had returned.
Seraphine didn't need to hold it to know that it had. The moment she stepped to the window, there it was, the soft shimmer of violet against the earth.
It didn't make sense.
The house had never allowed such things to pass through—never so easily.
And yet, there it was. A thread in the fabric, pulled just enough to feel something shift. The house hadn't stopped her, hadn't rejected the offering.
Her fingers itched to touch it, to pull the flower back through the glass—but the wall felt different. Thicker now. Almost... heavier.
Her hand hovered over the air between her and the world beyond.
He knows.
The thought came unbidden, like a whisper she hadn't asked for. He knew enough to leave that flower. Enough to mark his place without speaking.
Seraphine pressed her forehead against the glass.
Something was happening. Something beyond her control.
She had watched him—watched him leave the field as if he had found exactly what he needed. But she couldn't let him see her, couldn't let him know she was still here.
Not yet.
The walls of the Glass Tomb kept her locked inside, but not completely. There were cracks. Cracks only she knew how to trace. She had spent years learning the shape of them. Years studying the air just enough to know where it whispered.
And now… now the air was stirring. As if someone were listening.
She couldn't stop herself.
Her fingers brushed against the edge of the lock again. Not to open it. Not yet. But to feel how close it was.
She waited.