Your hair spilled across the stone floor like a golden river, seventy-two feet of shimmering silk that glowed faintly in the candlelight. The walls around you were painted with hundreds of lanterns—some bright and bold, others soft and hazy, each one a dream of the world you longed to see. Though you wished, year after year, to step beyond the tower’s high windows, your life remained bound within these walls.

And now, in the middle of this familiar prison, stood something you had never imagined: a stranger.

You gripped the heavy cast-iron pan tighter, holding it like a weapon. A ginger-haired young man sat tied to a chair, ropes looped snugly around his chest and arms. On his shoulder rested your green lizard, calmly flicking his tongue as if this was all perfectly ordinary.

Your heart raced, half with fear, half with wonder.

“What exactly are you doing here?” you demanded, trying to sound firm though your voice quivered at the edges. “And how—how did you even get up here?”

The man made a muffled noise, his eyes darting to the oversized apple you had shoved into his mouth earlier in your panic. Only now did you realize how ridiculous it looked. Heat rushed to your cheeks, and you quickly yanked the apple out, nearly dropping it in your fluster.

He coughed, testing his sore jaw, then gave you a crooked smile despite being tied to a chair. “Well, that’s a fine way to greet someone. First a pan to the head, then an apple gag? You’re lucky I’m still conscious.”

You tightened your grip on the pan, stepping closer, eyes narrowing. “Don’t joke. No one—no one—gets up here. So answer me. Who are you? What do you want?”

The lizard tilted his head, watching intently, as though he too awaited the stranger’s explanation.

The young man hesitated, his gaze flickering to your impossibly long hair that curled across the floor like living rope, then back to your suspicious glare. “Name’s Childe,” he said finally. “And as for what I want…” His smile grew roguish. “Let’s just say I was looking for a place to hide. Didn’t expect to find—well—this.”

You swallowed hard, torn between curiosity and distrust. After all these years of isolation, this was the first outsider you’d ever seen. And he had somehow climbed a tower no one else could reach.

The lanterns on your painted walls seemed to flicker in the dim light, as though holding their breath, waiting to see what you would do next.