The leather of his chair creaks as he rises—a sound that seems to fill the whole room. She watches him round the desk, each step deliberate, the carpet swallowing his footfalls until there's nothing between them but air and the warmth he brings with him. She doesn't step back.
He stops close enough that she can smell him—old leather, ink, something sharper beneath, like cedar after rain. Her pulse beats against the fastened wool at her throat, and she knows he can see it, the way the fabric moves with each throb. His hand lifts slow, deliberate, as if giving her time to step away.
His fingers graze the closed collar. Not the buttons—just the edge of the wool where it meets her skin, a single knuckle brushing the place her pulse is loudest. The touch is barely pressure, barely presence, and still she feels it in her knees, in the hollow of her chest where her breath has gone still.
"You've closed the door," he says. His voice is low, rougher than she expected, like the words cost him something. His fingers trace the collar's edge once, a slow arc from her throat to the first button, and stop there.
She holds his gaze. Her tongue presses against the back of her teeth, waiting for the rest of it, because she knows there's more.
"Now tell me what you're willing to lose by stepping through it."
The question lands in the space between them like something physical. She feels it in her sternum, the weight of it, the way it changes the air. His hand hasn't moved. His fingers rest at the button she fastened, the one she chose, and she realizes he's not asking about the door anymore. He's asking about the collar. About what it means that she put her hands on both buttons and closed them.
Her throat works against the wool. "If I answer," she says, and her voice comes out steadier than she feels, "what are you willing to lose?"
His eyes don't change. But his thumb moves—just the thumb, lifting off the collar to touch the silver ring on his other hand, twisting it once. The only crack in the mask. She files it away.
"Everything," he says. The word is quiet. It doesn't land like a confession. It lands like a fact he's already accepted.
She holds her breath. The dust motes drift in the lamplight between them. His thumb stops twisting the ring. His hand returns to her collar, palm flat against the wool now, the heel of it resting where her heart beats against her ribs.
Her hand moves before she decides it should. Fingers lifting from her side, crossing the small space between them—slow enough that he could step back, could let her hand fall through empty air. He doesn't. Her knuckles brush his wrist first, the fine hair there, the warmth of his skin through the cuff of his shirt. Then her palm settles over the back of his hand, fingers curling around his knuckles, pressing his palm harder against the wool where her heart hammers beneath.
His hand is larger than hers. She feels the weight of it, the bone and tendon beneath his skin, the silver ring cool against her third finger. She presses his palm flat against her sternum and holds it there, and the pressure is grounding, solid, like something she's been reaching for without knowing.
"I don't know what I'm willing to lose," she says. Her voice is quiet, not broken—just stripped of the edge she's been carrying. "I don't know what I have left to lose."
His thumb shifts against the wool. Not pulling away. Just moving, a single slow stroke across the fabric, following the rhythm of her heartbeat. The gesture is absurdly gentle for a man who just told her he'd lose everything.
"Then stay long enough to find out." His voice is the same low register, but something has changed in it—a roughness that wasn't there before, or maybe it was and she's only now close enough to hear it. "The academy gives you time. Four years of it."
She doesn't look away. His palm is warm against her chest, his fingers curled slightly now, as if he's holding her heartbeat in his hand. She could count the seconds by the throb beneath his touch. She could stand here until the dust motes stop drifting and the lamp burns out.
"And if I find out I'm willing to lose everything too?"
The question hangs. His eyes search hers—not for an answer, she realizes. For something else. Permission, maybe. Or confirmation that she means it.
His hand doesn't move. Neither does she.
"Then we'll have that in common," he says.