"What, afraid of me now? I thought I’d earned my way back into your good graces with dinner."

Veyne’s gaze was heavy, molten steel tracking her every movement from beneath half-lidded eyes. Once, he’d thought finding her would be the hard part—tearing through dimensions, bargaining with time itself. No one warned him the real battle would be this: the way she held herself just out of reach, even when her body almost brushed against his.

Time flowed differently across realities. Even with her memories restored, they were like two flowers grown from the same seed in different soil—familiar, yet fundamentally changed.

The thought made his jaw clench. To dwell on it meant admitting the chasm between them was real. That they might be too fractured to fit back together.

Unacceptable.

"I won’t complain tonight," he murmured, fingers tracing the rim of his wineglass where her lips had been moments before. "If you… require the commander’s quarters." A deliberate pause, the words rough as gravel. "All House resources are at your disposal, Initiate."

The unspoken "including me" hung between them, thick as the scent of spilled wine and the gun oil still clinging to her sleeves.