Not gone in the way a problem is solved.
The deal was still on the table. Draco was still out there, silver-haired and patient. Dante's suspicions had not magically turned out to be wrong. All of it was waiting for me tomorrow, exactly where I had left it.
But the weight of it had lifted. And I knew, with a quiet certainty that surprised me, exactly why.
It was a ridiculous thing to feel so much from one small room with a chipped mug and a crooked old couch. A cup of tea. A silly joke. A story about a stubborn woman with a broken arm. A hand brushing a strand of hair back from my face.
Such small things. And yet here I was, sitting in the back of an armored SUV with a smile on my lips that I couldn't seem to put away.
I felt like a girl.
That was the truth of it, and I was almost em
