Monica. Is. Horrified.
She freezes in front of me like I've just confessed to a federal crime without an attorney present. One hand grips her mug. The other hovers in the air, palm open, as if she's physically trying to catch her sanity before it escapes.
"I was out of town for one weekend," Monica says, staring at me like she's recalculating every life choice that led here. "I cannot leave you unsupervised."
Truthfully, I'd thought about asking Monica to come with me to pack. Then I pictured her canceling on the true crime convention she'd been excited about for months just to rescue me from my own life and couldn't bring myself to ask.
I'd had every intention of going alone.
"It just sort of happened that way," I try, already knowing how it sounds.
"Start over," she says sighing. "Slowly. With small words."
"I found a sublet," I say. "A cheap one. Online."
"So far, this is the only part of the story that isn't giving me an aneurysm."
She narrows her eyes. I sit up a little straighter because the way Monica is looking at me suddenly feels like an interrogation.
"And when I got there," I continue, "the person who opened the door was Evander." I try to end on an upward inflection.
Monica inhales sharply. "The Twerp."
I sigh. "Yes."
"The one who schedules his life like it's a NASA launch sequence."
"That's a little—"
"The one who gives off 'competent but emotionally unavailable' energy."
I rub my temples. "Your version of him does. Mine… doesn't."
Her suspicion sharpens, but she lets it go. "So. You show up. And he just happens to be the one renting out a penthouse suite."
"It was a coincidence," I say. "Pure coincidence. I didn't know it was his place when I clicked the listing."
Monica presses her hand to her chest. "You didn't think to leave."
"I was shocked," I say. "And then he asked me to come in and look around, and at that point, my legs just… did what they wanted."
She stares at me like she's watching a toddler run toward an electrical outlet.
"So you toured it."
"I toured it."
"And it was nice."
"It was very nice."
"And then he offered it to you."
"Yes." I fold my hands. "At a reasonable price."
Monica places her mug on my desk with a soft ceramic click that sounds like she's setting down a verdict. "Evie."
The single word holds the weight of five years of friendship and at least forty moments where she has watched me drift straight into danger with a polite smile.
"People do not just hand out luxury penthouses."
"He didn't hand it out," I say. "He sublet it."
She lets out a breath through her nose. "Evie…"
"I needed somewhere to live," I say. "This was available. It worked out."
"Worked out," she repeats, tasting the phrase like it's gone bad.
"It's temporary."
"And he just happened to have a fully furnished penthouse lying around."
"We don't know his life," I argue.
She narrows her gaze. "Assistants don't have penthouses."
"Maybe he inherited it. Or won it in a raffle. Or—"
"Evie."
I stop.
She leans closer. "Promise me you at least checked the place for hidden rooms. And cameras. And hostages."
"I checked the kitchen," I say. "That feels spiritually equivalent."
She drags a hand down her face. "You're absolutely going to die."
"It's not a murder loft," I say.
"Nothing out of your mouth reassures me." She gives me a long, tired look. "I hope your ghost knows I tried."
I hesitate. "There's more."
Monica closes her eyes. Just briefly. Like someone bracing for impact.
I give her a blow-by-blow.
That Ash was there when we agreed he wouldn't be.
That he tried to talk his way out of everything as soon as he opened his mouth.
How quickly everything seemed to escalate.
"No," I say, when she asks the question that matters. "He didn't get near me."
Her grip tightens on the mug anyway and she watches my face carefully now.
"Evander didn't make it a thing either," I add. "He didn't push. He didn't ask questions. He just… stood there."
Monica exhales. "Of course he did."
"He did make it easier," I say. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd been alone with Ash."
She studies me for a long moment. Her eyes flick briefly to my hands, then back to my face.
"I'm still furious Ash got anywhere near you," she says. "That part stands."
"Same."
"But I'm relieved you weren't alone," she continues. "Even if the backup wears sensible shoes and probably owns a label maker."
I smile, small and real. "He absolutely does."
She shakes her head. "Fine. One point. For wrist-grabbing and strategic existing."
"Only one?"
"I operate on a strict rubric."
She gathers her mug and stands. At the doorway, she pauses.
"And Evie?"
"Yeah."
"I'm proud of you," she says.
My throat tightens. Partially out of gratitude for how much she seems to really care about me and part because now that it's over, I finally feel like I'm able to digest what my life has become after everything.
I nod, because words feel like too much.
She gives me a quick, crooked smile and steps back into the main room, already snapping at Harold about a mislabeled file.
The museum noise swells again. Tours. Phones. Distant laughter.
I sit there a moment longer, heart still ticking faster than normal, thinking of Ash's face when he realized I wasn't alone.
Thinking of Evander, steady beside me, his hand stopping a wrist that never reached my skin.
Everything finally feels like it's going back to normal. Whatever that's going to look like for me now.
Normal isn't what it used to be. I can tell already. Like someone moved the walls while I wasn't looking and I'm only now noticing the extra space. The emptiness ready to be lamented over or filled.
My days will still start here. The archive will still hum and breathe and pretend it isn't a living thing with opinions. I'll still label boxes and correct dates and argue with paperwork that insists on being difficult. That part stays. It's comforting to know some things aren't negotiable.
But other things are.
I won't go home to the same place. I won't tiptoe around someone else's moods or rehearse conversations in my head that never actually change anything. I won't spend my evenings wondering how I managed to misunderstand my own life so badly.
That feels new.
I think about the penthouse, briefly. About light and quiet and the way the space felt like it expected me to exist in it, not apologize for taking up room. I think about unpacking boxes without an audience. About choosing where things go and letting that be the end of the decision.
I think about how strange it is that the thing I'm most looking forward to isn't relief, exactly, but clarity. The absence of constant negotiation. The freedom of knowing what I want and not needing to justify it to anyone.
It's not happiness, I know that. Not yet.
But it's solid.
It feels like standing on ground that doesn't shift the second I put my weight down.
The morning drifts by in its usual slow shuffle. Cool light slips in through the narrow window, softened by years of dust that no amount of cleaning ever quite defeats. The faint scent of boxes and old paper. The soft hum of the climate control that keeps the archives from melting into one large, collective tantrum.
It's steady work. Repetitive in a way that settles my thoughts just enough to keep them from scattering across the floor like dropped beads.
Label a box.
Log a file.
Update a record.
Pretend my weekend wasn't a full emotional exorcism. No big deal.
I move carefully, deliberately, the way I do when I don't want my mind wandering anywhere interesting. My body knows the rhythm by heart. Hands moving while my brain stays pleasantly under-stimulated.
I'm halfway through scanning an accession form, already aware I'll need to redo it because I blinked, skipping an entire line, when Monica appears at the threshold of my office.
She doesn't knock. She never knocks. She just materializes like she's been summoned by paperwork.
"You have a visitor," she says.
I lower the scanner. "Please tell me it's the coffee guy and he brought scones."
"No," she says, with genuine regret. "It's Riven. Asking about the donation."
My brain obliges immediately.
Riven. Five-foot-eight if he's wearing the right shoes. Sandy hair that suggests a long-standing feud with combs. Pale as printer paper. Built like a stack of packing envelopes held together by optimism. A man who once tried to smuggle a 'cursed' music box out of the archives inside a hollowed-out tissue dispenser and was deeply offended when we confiscated it.
"He's here in person," I ask.
"He insisted," Monica mutters. "And I want it on record he already annoyed me and hasn't even finished his sentence."
I sigh. "Fine. Send him in."
She nods and disappears.
I tidy my desk without thinking. Pens aligned. Folder nudged precisely into place. Order helps. It always has. I take a breath meant to brace myself for the specific, manageable chaos that is Riven Wynn.
The door opens.
The breath leaves me all at once.
Because that is not Riven Wynn.
The man who steps inside is taller than the doorframe seems designed to accommodate. Broad-shouldered. Dark-haired. Still in a way that feels structural, not hesitant. His gaze moves through the room like it's taking inventory, sharp enough to catch on corners and shadows.
He doesn't fidget. He doesn't hover.
He fills the space.
This man has weight.
Gravity.
Edges.
And I know him.
Not properly. Not rationally. But I remember the shape of him, the one whose face lingered behind my eyelids long after I woke up. The one I told myself wasn't real.
Standing in front of me is the man from my dream. The same dream I have had every single night since.
My chair rolls back an inch before I realize I've moved.
"Can I help you?" I ask, confused and, annoyingly, a little in awe.
He stops just inside the doorway, like he's wandered into the wrong photo shoot and isn't sure where to stand.
"Ms. Hale," he says.
His voice is lower than I expect. Familiar in a way that makes my skin tingle.
"Yes," I say carefully. "Who are you?"
A crease forms between his brows. "What are you talking about."
Now we're both confused and I've got a nervous prickle running up my spine that tells me something's not right.
"If you're looking for guest services," I say, "it's on the other side of the building."
"Ms. Hale," he says, stepping forward. "It's me. Riven."
"No," I say, pushing back and standing in one awkward motion. "Riven is five-seven on a good day. I don't know who you are, and I don't know how you know my name."
He blinks. "Five… what?"
"And I'm calling security if you don't leave. This area isn't open to the public."
He lifts his hands, palms out. "Please. Just listen—"
I reach for my phone.
He crosses the room in a single step. Or at least that's what it felt like. One second he's in the doorway, the next he's right in front of me. I have to stare up at him.
I yelp and jerk my hand back, but he's already there. His fingers close around my wrist. His hand is warm and gentle but firm enough that I can't loosen his grip a centimeter.
It feels strangely grounding. But that's too confusing for the situation so I mentally file that away to parse through later.
We're too close. The sudden proximity. His hand around my wrist. My pulse loud in my ears.
And then—
He lifts his other hand and slips the ring off my finger.
Cleanly. Easily. Like it's just a ring. Like it hasn't resisted every attempt I've ever made to remove it.
I freeze.
He stares at it in his hand, something like dread flickering across his expression.
I pull my hand away and rub the empty space on my now naked finger. A small, traitorous part of me is sorry to see it gone, and I don't like that.
"Where did you get this," he breathes.
But before I can answer—
The ring vanishes from his grasp.
Right out of his hand. A soft blink of absence.
Then it's back on my finger. Cold. Then warm. Then pulsing once, like it's announcing itself.
I stare at it. Then at him. My mind stalls completely.
"What?" My questions tumble out one after another. "What did you just do? How did you take it off. No one can take it off. I can't take it off. Who are you."
He's staring at my hand and the ring. His eyes lock onto mine. Dark. Bright. Ancient.
"Ms. Hale," he says quietly. "We need to talk."
And every hair on my arms lifts in one slow ripple.