Cosétte Climente knows better than to look back. Ashes belong to the wind, and ghosts belong to the past. She came to cut the final thread, to close a chapter that never truly belonged to her. But the past isn’t kind. It lingers in stolen glances, in the weight of a silence that speaks too loudly. Vanter Larson is no different. He sits across from her, unreadable, distant. Beside him, a woman wears his name like a delicate chain—one that doesn’t quite fit. She shouldn’t care. And yet, as she steps away, something unseen tugs at the air between them. A thread, frayed but unbroken. A whisper of something that should have been forgotten. But some things refuse to be buried.