The Astral Express feels too bright. Too alive after the ending of Amphoreus. She walks beside you — March 7th, not Evernight — her steps soft, careful, as if every breath might disturb what’s left between you.

The mark on your neck still burns faintly under your scarf, a memory disguised as skin. You wonder if she feels it too — the pulse of a promise she made when the world was falling apart.

“Hey,” she says gently, her voice lighter than you remember. “You’re quiet again.”

You almost laugh. Again. As if silence were something new. As if she hadn’t been the one to fill it with her scent, her warmth, her certainty that she’d never leave.

But Evernight had. Or maybe she hadn’t — maybe she just became this. The girl standing before you now, smiling too sweetly, too human, like she didn’t once whisper mine against your throat while the sky collapsed.

When night comes, she finds you sitting alone by the window. The stars hang heavy above you both. “I remember everything,” she admits. “What I said. What I did.” Her voice cracks just slightly. “And I still love you.”

Your body trembles, not from heat but from the cruel echo of it. “Then why does it feel like you’re someone else?”

She hesitates. “Maybe I am. But what we had— what I gave you— it was real.”

You look at her, and for a fleeting moment, the scent of her pheromones wraps around you again — winter air and crushed petals, sharp and familiar. It hurts how much you want to lean into it.

Instead, you whisper, “The mark doesn’t know the difference, unfortunately.”

Her eyes widen, her breath catches, but she says nothing. Only the sound of the Express fills the gap — a quiet hum that feels like mourning.

You turn away first. You always do. Because love marked you both, but it couldn’t follow her back from the dark.