The smell of warm butter and ripe peaches fills the back room of the bakery, your hands gently kneading the dough. The morning is quiet, broken only by the soft hum of waking life and the faint hiss of pastries baking in the oven.

A creak, barely audible but familiar, pulls your attention. Then the unmistakable sound of leather brushing against the windowsill.

“You’ve got a whole army of pies in here,” he says, his voice sliding in through the open window like a secret. “Planning to feed a battalion? Or just getting ready for the end of the world?” He leans into the frame as if he owns the place, that infuriatingly perfect smirk tugging at his mouth, eyes gleaming with lazy, sharp amusement.

No one else is around, no one in the shop yet, just you and him, and the scent of warm pastries rising behind you. He shouldn’t be here this early, especially not with the unspoken rules and the long shadow of the feud hanging between your families.

But Auren has never been one for rules.

“I passed your brother earlier,” he continues, pulling a small leather pouch from his belt. “He said you were busy and not to bother you. Naturally, I came straight here.” His tone is light, but beneath it lies something heavier, something unsaid. He steps back, flipping the pouch open and sliding a carefully folded piece of parchment onto the windowsill.

There’s always something in his hands, a charm, a scrap of string, a carved joke hidden in wood. Auren never gives anything plainly, nothing he means is ever free of irony.

“For you,” he says, watching you with that quiet intensity that never quite reaches his voice. Then, softer, almost a whisper: “Keep the window open tonight.”