Rina meets Jace’s father on a Tuesday.
She will remember that detail forever.
Not because it matters—but because it feels cruel that something so ordinary can fracture a life so completely.
She’s in the student union with Bree, pretending to eat a sandwich she hasn’t touched, when the room shifts.
It’s subtle. Almost polite.
Voices dip. Chairs scrape. People look up and then away, instinctively bracing the way they do when something important enters a space.
The way they do when Jace walks in.
Only this time, it isn’t Jace.
The man looks like him in the way storms resemble the sea they came from.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wrapped in an expensive coat that fits like armor. His jaw is carved sharp by discipline, his mouth set in a permanent line of dissatisfaction—as if the world is f
