The revelation from his mother’s letter had carved a chasm through the bedrock of Lysander’s soul, and I had willingly jumped in after him. For hours after the phone call about the informant, we didn’t speak of Thorne or the ship's logs. We sat on the floor of his study, leaning against the sofa, the empty envelope between us like a shed skin. He told me stories — fragile, cherished memories of his mother that he’d locked away, tainted by the belief of her abandonment. The sound of her laughter in the garden. The way she hummed off-key while arranging flowers. The scent of her perfume, jasmine and rain.
I listened, my hand resting on his knee, a steady, grounding pressure. I offered my own fragments in return — the way my father used to let me mix paints in his office, the smell of turpen
