Three years.
In the quiet, suspended reality of the Dolby Theatre, the number felt both impossibly long and as fleeting as the flicker of a camera flash. Three years since the courtroom doors closed, sealing Julian Knight’s fate and opening the first page of my real life.
The world had spun on. Empires rose and fell. Trends came and went. But for us, for Arthur and me, these three years had been a deliberate, meticulous act of construction. We were building something new on cleared ground, laying each brick with intention, with purpose, with the hard-won wisdom of those who have seen the rubble.
Tonight was the culmination of that work.
I smoothed a hand over the deep emerald silk of my gown, the fabric cool against my skin. Beside me, Arthur was a study in stillness, his presence a so
