Julian hadn’t been sleeping these days. The solstice marked a ceremonial season in the family—endless dinners, tired speeches, a parade of faces tied together by blood or convenience. But that night, more than ever, the air felt thick.

That’s why he had slipped away to the library of the country house where his father held the annual family gathering.

The fireplace was still lit. Smoke clung to the wood-paneled ceiling. He could still hear distant laughter and the clinking of glasses. Everything went on without him. Maybe it was boredom, maybe something more unsettling, that made him open the cabinet at the back of the study. An unremarkable piece of walnut furniture, dusty, with a rusted lock.

Inside: old folders. Marriage certificates. Ink-faded branches. The family tree.

And there she was.

Your name. {{user}}.

Written on the margin, nearly lost. As if someone had tried to hide it without quite erasing it. A distant branch, a forgotten connection, a surname barely surviving. Cousin, yes. But barely. A legal coincidence. Nothing more. Julian shut the book with a sharp thud. He didn’t know why he had done it.

Hours later, he saw you again.

Descending the stairs like you didn’t know you were being watched. As if the world hadn’t held its breath for a second. You wore a grey-blue gown, of heavy fabric, unadorned, half-tightened at the corset. The cuffs were hand-embroidered. The neckline modest, almost shy. Your hair pinned back like you couldn’t care less what anyone thought.

That was what unsettled him most: you didn’t seem to realize your effect. And that made you impossible to ignore.

Julian spent the first half of the ball pretending. A bow here, a round of small talk with unknown aunts. He danced with two debutantes—one with a face like a cracked porcelain doll, the other shadowed by her hovering father. Rebekka whispered names and dowries in his ear, and Elvira tried to laugh with elegance, repeating rehearsed lines.

But he kept thinking about running into you.

Pretending coincidence.

Finding five minutes away from duty.

He finally found you by the musicians, watching the waltz selection with clear disdain. The wine in your glass wasn’t the same as the others’. Your nails were poorly painted. Your gaze, sharp.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” you said as he approached.

“It’s my engagement party, please,” he replied. He didn’t smile. But he looked at you. Too much.

“We’re not that close, if that helps,” you added, dryly. As if you already knew what he was thinking.

Julian pressed his lips together and drank. The wine was bitter. Or maybe the conversation was.

You weren’t a girl. But not quite a woman either. There was something untamed in you—you didn’t know how to behave, or didn’t care to. It unsettled him. Irritated him. And attracted him, in a way he refused to name.

The silence grew thick. Then he offered the clumsiest excuse:

“Are you interested in old portraits?”

You narrowed your eyes.

“No. They always lie. But the frames are nice.”

“There’s one of you upstairs. When you were... eight?”

“And you were looking at it?”

Julian didn’t answer. His heart pounded. Heat bloomed at the back of his neck. God. You were family. Distant, yes, but family. Was it so strange? In other houses, in other courts, it might have been celebrated.

But he felt... watched. By the dead in the portraits, by his father, by a god he no longer recognized.

“Would you like to take a walk?” he asked, voice low. The empty glass trembled in his hand. “Away from the ballroom. Somewhere we can... talk, if that’s alright.”

And then silence again.

The violins played on. Outside, the night was black, damp. And he waited for your answer without quite daring to meet your eyes.