The candles had burned themselves down to stubs, and the first thin light of morning slid across the room. Sadie lay beside you, her hair loose across the pillow, the faint trace of last night’s paint still clinging to her lips. She carried herself with a kind of ease that didn’t look careless—it looked practiced, like she knew exactly how mornings like this were meant to go.

Your fingers skimmed her shoulder, tracing idle patterns, and she let you, though her eyes flicked open at the touch. Sharp eyes, calm mouth. She didn’t pull away, but she held your hand just lightly, like she was guiding the pace rather than surrendering to it.

Outside, the cobblestones were restless with a man’s footsteps, the one who had followed you in the night. You could still hear him, waiting, unsettled. Sadie turned her head toward the window but didn’t move, didn’t stir, just gave a small, almost amused smile.

“He’ll tire of it,” she said simply, her voice low, steady. “They always do.”

And then she looked back at you, unhurried, composed, as if this—your tracing fingers, the weight of morning, even the man outside—was all just another part of the work she already knew by heart.