The package arrived with no name.
Just a slender box, wrapped in deep blue velvet, waiting on Evelyn's desk when she returned from morning classes. No scent, no enchantment, no note.
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she opened it.
Inside lay a small silver pendant, shaped like a flame entwined with a feather—delicate, hand-forged, and unmistakably familiar. Her breath caught in her throat.
It wasn't just jewelry.
It was hers.
From another time. Another life.
A trinket she'd lost years ago, during a stormy night she barely remembered. Her mother had given it to her. She'd been crying then. Grieving. Her father hadn't come home.
And Alexander…
She touched the metal. The memory uncurled in her mind like smoke.
A boy, cold and silent in the rain, had found her beside the academy wall, holding the shattered chain in her palm. He hadn't spoken—he'd just taken it gently from her hand, fixed the clasp with quiet precision, and returned it to her.
"I'll keep it safe," he'd whispered then. "Until you remember to wear it again."
Until you remember me.
She hadn't realized.
She hadn't known it was him.
Evelyn blinked hard as emotion swelled unexpectedly in her chest.
Outside her window, she heard footsteps. Familiar. Heavy. Controlled.
Alexander.
He was standing beneath the archway again, where Caelan had spoken to her yesterday. He didn't look up—but she could feel him, as if the flame in the pendant pulsed with his presence.
She clutched it to her chest.
He had kept it. All this time. Through the years. Through his silence.
And he'd returned it now—when the world watched and doubted and pulled them apart—he gave her back a piece of herself.
Not to remind her of him.
But to remind her of who she was before the world tried to reshape her.
In the shadowed corridor below the tower, Alexander leaned his head back against the stone. He hadn't meant for her to find it so soon.
He hadn't meant for the memories to return just yet.
But part of him… part of him had hoped.
Because if she remembered that night—then maybe she'd also remember the promise he never said aloud.
That no matter what she chose, or where she stood, he would always find his way back to her.
Even if she didn't choose him in the end.