The night after the coin burned, Orla dreamed of a garden that wasn’t hers.
Soft grass underfoot. A hummingbird in flight. A child’s laughter in the distance—too light to be her own voice, but familiar enough to sting.
She woke gasping.
Stanley was already watching her, shirtless in the dawn light.
His hand found her waist. “Bad dream?”
“No,” she whispered, curling into him. “Just… unfinished.”
They didn’t speak about what they’d burned.
Because fire had its own language.
Instead, they kissed in the silence, mouths tasting like salt and sleep and something deeper.
And when they touched again—slow, reverent, skin to skin—it wasn’t a fever or a hunger anymore.
It was a decision.
To stay. To want. To live, again.
By afternoon, Elias arrived with news.
“He’s gone,” Elias said. “Cr
