Chapter 66: And the Quiet Was Not Still
In the pale hush of dawn, Eva wakes not in her own bed, but in the stillness that lives beside Seraphina. The sheets smell like lavender and open fields, like pages yet unwritten. The light is soft, the air unbroken. And yet, the quiet is not still—it breathes around her like a question.
Seraphina is near. Reading. Breathing. Existing with the kind of presence that makes Eva feel whole. And when their eyes meet, everything else—Reginald's voice, the rules, the things she cannot say—melts like frost in the sun. There is no lecture here. No grown-up world with sharp corners. Just Seraphina, her Ina, and the fragile, impossible tenderness between them.
A kiss asked like magic. Apple slices offered like gifts. A breakfast where love is not spoken, but fed in pieces—bite by bite, soft as morning.
And when Eva returns home, the quiet follows her. Not empty. Not aching. But filled with something sacred. A dream she can't name. A voice still in her bones. And in that hush, Evelyn returns—guilt in her shadow, but warmth in her hands.
That night, Eva dreams again. Of wings made of paper. Of ink that almost speaks.
Of a hand that holds her and does not let go.