Just before dawn, the letter arrived.
It did not announce itself with a knock or the scrape of hurried footsteps retreating down the hall. It simply appeared—quiet, deliberate—as though it had always been meant to be there. A simple cream envelope lay half-hidden beneath Emilia’s door, its edge catching the faint gray light that seeped through the narrow hallway window. No courier logo. No return address. No explanation. It looked less like a delivery and more like a secret that had grown tired of waiting.
Emilia almost missed it.
She was barefoot, hair loose around her shoulders, moving through the apartment in a fog of exhaustion. The night before clung to her skin like a second shadow—too many revelations, too many images burned into her mind, too many truths she hadn’t yet found wor
