~Selene's POV~
He arrives Thursday at the exact hour he named.
She notes this without remarking on it, the way she notes most things about him now, filing it into the ongoing record she keeps without ever calling it a record out loud, even to herself. The border held, then. He kept the promise he was careful never to fully make, the one phrased as a likelihood rather than a guarantee, and she had noticed that carefulness too, the deliberate gap he leaves between what he says and what he commits to.
She opens the door. He steps into the hallway and waits, the same waiting he has done at every threshold for going on three weeks now, neither advancing nor retreating, simply present at the edge of the space until she decides how much of it to give him.
She steps back to let him in.
Miriam
