The grey light came first, soft and unforgiving, seeping through the floor-to-ceiling glass like water finding its way through cracks. Lily lay still beneath the sheet, her eyes open, watching the city below stir to life. The orange smear of streetlights was fading, swallowed by the pale dawn, and somewhere out there her father was waking up in a house that smelled of old wood and worry, checking his phone for messages from the Kapoors, counting the hours until his daughter saved him.

She felt the warmth beside her before she turned. Rohan's body was a furnace against her back, his arm heavy across her waist, his breath slow and even against her neck. She had memorized the weight of him in the dark, the way his hand had found hers in the small hours and held it like he was afraid she'd dissolve into the sheets. She hadn't slept. Not really. She'd drifted in and out of a half-dream where the wedding was a room she kept walking toward, a door she couldn't stop opening.

Now the light was grey, and the room was real, and she could smell his cologne on the pillowcase beneath her cheek. She breathed it in once, deep, the way you'd hold a scent you knew you'd never smell again. Then she moved.

His arm tightened.

She stilled, her heart kicking against her ribs. She didn't turn. She waited, counting her breaths, and after a long moment his arm loosened. Not released. Loosened. Enough for her to slip out from under it and sit up on the edge of the bed, the sheet pooling around her thighs.

The air was cold against her skin. She shivered once, then reached for her blouse on the floor where he'd pulled it off her hours ago. The cream silk was rumpled, one button missing, and she held it for a moment before sliding it over her shoulders. The fabric settled against her like a lie she was learning to wear.

The gold pendant touched her skin and she felt it like a shock. Cold, small, insistent. She'd worn it for two years, every day, through every family dinner and every hollow smile and every night she'd lain awake wondering if he was alive somewhere. Now it felt different. It felt like a promise she'd forgotten she was carrying.

She reached for the button of her skirt, then stopped. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs, breathed in once, and reached again.

Behind her, the sheets shifted.

"Lily."

His voice was rough with sleep, low and gravelly, and it did something to her chest that made her want to crawl back into the bed and press her face into his shoulder and never come out. She didn't turn. She couldn't. If she turned, she'd see his dark eyes and his scarred knuckle and the way his jaw softened when he looked at her, and she'd forget why she was standing here at all.

She found the button. She did it up.

The silk slid over her thighs as she stood, and she felt the cool air against the backs of her legs, and she remembered his hands there, his mouth there, the way he'd whispered her name against her skin like it was the only prayer he knew. She closed her eyes for a second. Then she turned.

He was sitting up now, the sheet pooled at his waist, his chest bare and golden in the grey light. His hair was mussed from sleep, falling across his forehead, and his eyes were dark and unreadable, fixed on her with an intensity that made her breath catch. He looked like a man who'd been holding something back for two years and had finally let it go, and now he didn't know how to take it back.

"Don't," he said.

It wasn't a plea. It was a command, low and flat, and it made her stop halfway to the chair where her phone lay on the sheets. She looked at him.

"Don't what?" she asked, though she knew.

He didn't answer. He just looked at her, his eyes moving over her face like he was memorizing it, and then he moved. One moment he was sitting in the bed, and the next he was standing in front of her, his hand closing around her wrist.

His thumb pressed her pulse point. Steady. Deliberate. A reminder that she was alive, that her heart was beating, that she was here in this room with him and not somewhere else. She felt the pressure like a brand.

"Don't go to him," he said.

His voice was quiet now, raw, stripped of the command. It was a man asking, not telling. A man who had spent two years building an empire and still didn't know how to build a bridge back to her.

She didn't pull away. She couldn't. His grip was loose around her wrist, but his thumb was still on her pulse, and she felt like if she moved, she'd shatter something that couldn't be put back together.

"I have to," she whispered.

The words came out smaller than she'd meant them to. Thinner. She saw something flicker in his eyes, something that looked like pain, and then it was gone, smoothed over by control.

"You don't," he said. "You never had to. I can—"

"Don't." She cut him off, her voice sharper than she'd intended. "Don't say you can fix it. You can't fix this. This isn't something you can buy your way out of."

"I'm not trying to buy my way out of anything." His grip tightened, not in anger but in a desperate, calculated hold, like he was trying to anchor her to this moment. "I'm trying to keep you from walking into a life you don't want."

"You don't know what I want."

"I know you don't want him."

The words hung between them, heavy and true, and she couldn't argue. She couldn't say anything. She just stood there, her wrist in his hand, his thumb on her pulse, the grey light holding both of them in its pale, impartial grip.

She looked down at the phone on the sheets. It was dark, silent, a black rectangle that held her father's debt, her brother's education, her mother's house. It held every reason she had to walk out of this room and into a future she'd never chosen. It held the weight of everyone she loved, and it was so small, so impossibly small, to carry all of that.

"Do you know why I'm doing this?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He didn't answer. He just watched her, his eyes dark and unblinking.

"Because my father's company is drowning," she said. "Because if I don't do this, he loses everything. My brother loses his education. My mother loses the only home she's ever known. And I—" She stopped, her throat tightening. "I lose the only family I have."

"You'd lose yourself," Rohan said quietly.

She looked at him, and for a moment she forgot how to breathe. He said it so simply, so plainly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like he could see the part of her she'd been hiding from everyone, the part that was already fading, already becoming someone else.

"Maybe I don't have a self to lose anymore," she said, and the words came out bitter, and she hated herself for them.

His hand moved from her wrist to her face, his palm cradling her cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. The touch was so gentle it hurt. She felt her eyes sting, and she blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall.

"You do," he said. "I see it. I've always seen it."

She closed her eyes. She couldn't look at him anymore. If she looked at him, she'd break, and if she broke, she'd tell him everything—that she was terrified, that she didn't want to go, that she'd spent two years pretending she was fine and she was so tired of pretending. She'd tell him she loved him, and he already knew, and it wouldn't change anything.

She opened her eyes. The phone was still on the sheets, dark and silent. She reached for it, and his hand closed around her wrist again.

"Don't," he said.

"I have to."

"You don't."

"Rohan." Her voice cracked on his name. "Please."

He held her gaze for a long moment, and she saw something in his eyes that she'd never seen before. Not anger, not desperation. Something quieter. Something like grief.

"Two years," she said, her voice barely steady. "Then I'm yours. You promised to wait."

The words landed in the silence, and she felt them settle between them like a stone dropped into still water. She watched his face, the way his jaw tightened, the way his eyes darkened, the way his thumb still pressed her pulse point like he could feel her heart breaking through her skin.

He didn't answer.

The grey light held them both, and she stood there, her wrist in his hand, her eyes wet, the gold pendant cold against her collarbone, and she waited for him to say something, anything, that would make this easier.

He didn't.

And she didn't know if that was worse.

She felt the silence stretch like something physical, a thread pulled taut between them. His thumb hadn't moved from her pulse, and she could feel each beat of her heart against the pad of his finger, a confession she couldn't stop making. The city was waking up below them, a distant murmur of traffic and horns, but in this room the only sound was her breathing, shallow and uneven, and the soft rasp of his palm against her cheek.

Her eyes were wet. She could feel the heat of unshed tears pressing against the backs of them, and she blinked once, twice, but they wouldn't go. They just sat there, blurring the edges of his face, making him look softer than he was. She wanted to tell him to let go of her wrist. She wanted to tell him to hold on and never let go. Both sentences lived in her throat at once and neither of them made it out.

His thumb moved. Not away — along the line of her jaw, a slow, deliberate stroke that traced the bone from her chin to her ear. It was the kind of touch that wasn't asking for anything. It was the kind of touch that was saying goodbye in a language she didn't want to learn. She felt the gold pendant shift against her collarbone, cold and small, and she remembered the day he'd given it to her. They'd been nineteen, standing in the rain outside a cinema, and he'd pulled the chain from his pocket and told her it had been his mother's. She'd worn it every day since. She'd worn it through the two years he was gone, through every night she'd told herself he wasn't coming back, and now it felt heavier than it ever had.

"You're going to take it off," he said. It wasn't a question.

She looked at him. "What?"

"The pendant." His voice was flat, but his eyes weren't. "When you marry him. You're going to take it off."

She opened her mouth to deny it, and the lie died on her tongue. She'd thought about it. In the small hours, lying in the bed she'd slept in her whole life, staring at the ceiling and listening to her father's footsteps in the hall, she'd thought about what she'd wear tomorrow, what she'd carry into that church. A gold pendant from another man wasn't something you wore to your wedding. It wasn't something you wore into a marriage, even a contract one.

"I—" she started, and stopped.

His hand fell from her face. It dropped to his side like it weighed more than it had a moment ago, and she felt the loss of it like a cold wind. He didn't move away from her. He just stood there, close enough that she could feel the heat of him through the thin silk of her blouse, his chest bare, his jaw tight.

"I'll keep it," she said, and the words came out before she could stop them. "I'll keep it with me. I just—" She swallowed. "I can't wear it tomorrow. You know I can't."

He didn't say anything. He just looked at her, and she saw something move behind his eyes, something she couldn't name. She reached up and touched the pendant herself, her fingers closing around the small gold heart, and she felt the warmth of her own skin against the metal. It was the only thing she'd ever owned that felt like it was hers.

His hand moved. She felt it before she saw it — the brush of his knuckles against her collarbone, the faint scar on his right knuckle grazing her skin. He didn't take the pendant from her. He just touched it, his fingers resting over hers, and she felt the weight of his hand on top of her own.

"Two years," he said, and his voice was rough, scraped clean of everything but the words. "You said two years. You said you'd come back to the table."

"I will."

"And you said you'd never carry his child."

She felt the words land in her chest, each one a stone dropped into the silence between them. The gold pendant rested against her collarbone, and his fingers were still there, covering hers, the scar on his knuckle pressing into the soft skin of her hand. She could feel his heartbeat through his palm, or maybe it was her own, echoing back at her through the points where they touched.

"I meant it," she said. The words came out steady, surprising her. "Both of them. I meant every word."

His fingers tightened around hers, and she felt the pressure travel up her arm, settling somewhere behind her ribs. He didn't speak. He just held her hand against the pendant, his thumb tracing the edge of the gold heart, and she watched his face in the grey light, the way his jaw worked, the way his eyes moved over her like he was trying to find the lie in her.

"I need you to understand something," he said finally. His voice was low, measured, the voice he used in boardrooms, the voice that made men across a table go still. "I've spent two years building something. A company. A name. A version of myself that could walk into any room and take what he wanted." He paused. "I built it for you. Every deal, every late night, every hand I shook and every corner I cut — it was all for you."

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head, silencing her.

"So when you stand here and tell me you're going to walk into that church tomorrow and marry a man you don't love, and that I should wait two years, I need you to understand what you're asking." His thumb pressed her pulse point again, steady, deliberate. "You're asking me to watch you belong to someone else. To sit in this tower and know that somewhere out there, he's touching you, and I can't do a thing about it."

"Rohan."

"I'd do it," he said, and his voice cracked on the words. "I'd do it because you asked me to. I'd wait two years, five years, the rest of my life, if that's what it took. But I need you to know that it's not patience keeping me here." He lifted his other hand, brushing a strand of hair from her face, his fingers trailing down her cheek. "It's you. It's always been you."

She felt her eyes sting again, and she blinked, and a tear slipped free, tracing a hot line down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb, wiping it away before it could fall.

"Don't cry," he said softly. "I didn't say it to make you cry."

"I know." She swallowed. "I just—" She stopped, the words tangling in her throat. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to walk out of this room and pretend I'm not leaving a piece of myself behind."

"Then don't." His grip tightened. "Stay. Let me fix it. I can—"

"You can't fix my father's debt." She said it gently, not as a weapon, but as a fact. "You can't fix the contract he signed. You can't make the Kapoors disappear." She paused. "And even if you could, I wouldn't let you. This isn't your burden to carry."

"It could be."

"No." She shook her head. "It can't. You've spent two years building something for yourself, for us, and I won't let you burn it down to save me from a choice I already made."

His jaw tightened. "You made that choice before I came back."

"I made that choice because I didn't think you were coming back."

The words hung between them, raw and true, and she watched his face change as he heard them. The anger faded, replaced by something softer, something that looked almost like guilt.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For leaving. For not telling you why."

"You've said that."

"I mean it." He stepped closer, his hand still on her wrist, his body a wall of heat in the cold morning air. "I should have told you. I should have trusted you with the truth. But I was so afraid of failing, of coming back with nothing, that I convinced myself it was better to disappear than to ask you to wait for a man who might never make it."

"You made it," she said quietly. "You're here."

"And you're leaving."

She didn't have an answer for that. She just stood there, her wrist in his hand, the pendant cold against her skin, and felt the weight of everything she couldn't say pressing down on her shoulders.

His thumb moved again, stroking the inside of her wrist, a slow, absent motion like he was memorizing the feel of her pulse. She watched his face, the way his eyes softened, the way his mouth pressed into a thin line, and she knew he was doing the same thing she was — trying to hold onto this moment, to freeze it, to keep it from slipping away into the grey light.

"Two years," he said again, and this time it wasn't a question. It was a vow, spoken low and fierce. "Two years from today, you'll come back to the table. You'll sit across from me in that cafe, and you'll tell me you're free, and I'll be there."

"I know."

"And you won't have his child."

"I won't."

"Promise me."

"I promised you already." She lifted her free hand, pressing it over his where it rested on the pendant. "I promised you last night. I promised you in the cafe. I'll promise you again now, every day for the next two years, if that's what you need."

He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes searching hers, and then he pulled her into his arms. It wasn't gentle. It was desperate, his arms wrapping around her, his face pressed into her hair, his breath hot against her neck. She felt his body shake, just once, a tremor that ran through him like a current, and she wrapped her arms around him and held on.

"I can't lose you again," he said, his voice muffled against her hair. "I can't do it. I spent two years building a life I didn't want because I thought it would bring you back to me, and now you're here, and you're walking away, and I can't—"

"You're not losing me." She pulled back, her hands on his face, forcing him to look at her. "You're not. I'm coming back. I promised you, and I keep my promises."

"Do you?"

The question landed harder than he'd meant it to, she could see it in his eyes, the way they widened slightly, the way his mouth opened like he wanted to take it back. But it was already out, already hanging in the air between them, and she felt it settle into her chest like a cold stone.

"I kept your pendant," she said quietly. "For two years. I wore it every day, even when I wasn't sure you were alive. Even when I told myself I was a fool for hoping." She let go of his face, reaching up to touch the gold heart at her throat. "I'm not the one who left, Rohan. I'm not the one who disappeared."

His face crumpled. Not dramatically — a small, almost imperceptible shift, the way a building settles after years of standing. She watched him absorb the words, watched them land in him and take root, and she felt a small, vicious satisfaction at having said them, followed immediately by a wave of guilt.

"I know," he said finally. His voice was rough, scraped. "I know I did this. I know I'm the reason you're standing here, about to marry a man you don't love, about to give up two years of your life to save a family that never should have asked you to." He paused. "But I'm asking you now, Lily. Not as the man who left. As the man who's been trying to come back to you ever since."

"What are you asking?"

"Ask me to wait." He stepped closer, his hands finding her waist, his thumbs pressing into the silk of her blouse. "Ask me, and I'll wait. I'll wait every day, every hour, every minute. I'll count them down like a man counting down to his own freedom."

She looked at him, at the dark eyes and the scarred knuckle and the jaw that could cut glass, and she felt something in her chest crack open, a fissure she'd been holding shut for two years. She reached up and touched his face, her fingers tracing the line of his cheekbone, the slight stubble along his jaw.

His breath caught under her fingers. She felt it — the small, sharp intake of air that ran through his chest and into the space between them. He didn't move. He stood there in the grey light, her hand on his face, and let her touch him like he was memorizing the feel of her palm against his stubble, the way her thumb found the corner of his mouth, the way her fingers trembled against his skin.

"I'm asking you," he said, and his voice was barely there, a thread of sound in the cold air. "I'm asking you to give me something to hold onto. Something I can keep in my chest for the next two years while you're living someone else's life."

She felt the words land in her, each one settling somewhere deep. Her hand was still on his face, and she could feel the slight roughness of his jaw, the warmth of his skin, the way his pulse beat beneath her palm. She didn't want to let go. She wanted to stand here in this grey light with her hand on his face until the sun came up and the city below them forgot it had ever been dark.

"You have the pendant," she said, and the words came out quiet, almost lost in the space between them. "You have the promise. You have the table in that cafe, and you have the two years I'm going to count down like they're the only thing keeping me alive."

His hand came up and covered hers, pressing her palm harder against his cheek. His eyes were dark, unreadable, but she felt the slight tremor in his fingers, the way they curled around hers like he was afraid she'd pull away.

"That's not enough," he said. "It's not enough to know you're coming back. I need to know you're coming back to me. Not to the idea of me. Not to the memory. To me."

"I am." She said it without hesitation, the words rising up from somewhere she hadn't known was still whole. "I'm coming back to you, Rohan. I'm coming back to this room, to this tower, to the man who gave me a gold heart and told me it had been his mother's. I'm coming back to all of it."

His eyes searched hers, and she saw something move in them, something that looked like belief. It was fragile, tentative, like a thing that had been broken before and was learning to trust again. She watched it take root, watched it settle into his gaze, and she felt something in her chest loosen, a knot she hadn't known she'd been carrying.

"Say it again," he said.

"I'm coming back to you."

"Again."

"I'm coming back to you, Rohan. I'm coming back."

He pulled her close, his arms wrapping around her, his face pressing into her hair. She felt his breath hot against her scalp, felt the shudder that ran through him, felt the way his hands gripped the back of her blouse like he was anchoring himself to her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on, her cheek against his bare chest, the steady thud of his heart under her ear.

They stood like that for a long moment, the grey light washing over them, the city waking below. She could feel the cold air against her bare legs, the silk of her blouse thin and insubstantial, the gold pendant pressed between her collarbone and his chest. She breathed him in — the cologne, the sleep, the heat of his skin — and she felt something in her settle, a quiet certainty that had been missing for two years.

His hand moved to the back of her neck, his fingers threading through her hair. He tilted her head back, and she looked at him, at the dark eyes and the mouth that had whispered her name in the dark, and she felt the world narrow to the space between them.

"When you come back," he said, "I'm not letting you go again. I'm not letting you walk out of any room I'm in. I'm not letting you belong to anyone but me."

"And if I don't want to belong to anyone else?"

"Then you won't." His thumb traced the line of her jaw, a slow, deliberate stroke. "You'll be mine, and I'll be yours, and the two years will be a bridge we crossed, not a wall between us."

She felt the words settle into her, warm and fierce. She reached up and touched his face again, her fingers tracing the line of his brow, the hollow of his cheek, the corner of his mouth. She wanted to memorize him — the exact shade of his eyes in the grey light, the way his lips parted when she touched him, the faint scar on his right knuckle that she'd traced a hundred times in the dark.

"I should go," she said, and the words came out thick, reluctant.

His grip tightened. "Not yet."

"Rohan—"

"Not yet." He said it again, firmer this time, and she felt the command in it, the desperation underneath. "Give me a few more minutes. Give me until the sun's fully up. Give me until I can't pretend you're not leaving."

She wanted to argue. She wanted to point out that every minute she stayed made it harder, that every second she spent in this room was a second she'd have to unlive when she walked out the door. But she didn't. She just nodded, her hand still on his face, and let him pull her back into his arms.

The sun was rising behind the glass, a pale gold line creeping over the city's edge. She watched it over his shoulder, watched the orange smear of the streetlights fade into the grey-blue of morning, and she felt the weight of the day pressing down on her. Tomorrow, she would be someone else. Tomorrow, she would belong to a man she didn't love, in a house she'd never chosen, in a life that had been built for her by people who'd never asked what she wanted.

But today, she was here. Today, she was in his arms, her cheek against his chest, his heart beating under her ear. Today, she was still his.

His hand moved to her hair again, stroking the chestnut waves, and she felt herself relax into the touch, her eyes closing, her breath slowing. She let herself have this — this one moment of peace before the storm, this one breath of air before the dive. She let herself be held.

"Lily."

She opened her eyes. He was looking at her, his face serious, his eyes dark and intent.

"When you're there," he said, "when it's hard, when you feel like you can't do it anymore — I want you to remember this. I want you to remember that I'm here, waiting, counting the days. I want you to remember that you're not alone in this."

"I will."

"And I want you to know that I meant what I said. I can't fix your father's debt. I can't undo the contract. But I can be here. I can wait. I can love you from a distance until you're free."

She felt the tears threaten again, hot and insistent behind her eyes. She blinked them back, swallowing hard.

"I love you," she said, and the words came out steady, sure, the truest thing she'd said in two years. "I've loved you since we were nineteen and you gave me your mother's pendant in the rain. I've loved you through every day you were gone. I'll love you through the next two years, and the two after that, and every year after that until I die."

His eyes went soft, the hardness falling away, and she saw the boy she'd known, the one who'd held her hand in the cinema and kissed her in the rain and promised her a future he hadn't been able to give her. He pulled her close, his forehead pressing against hers, his breath warm on her lips.

"I love you," he said, and the words were rough, scraped raw. "I've loved you since the moment I saw you, and I'll love you until I can't love anything anymore. I'll wait for you, Lily. I'll wait for you forever."

She closed her eyes, feeling the truth of his words settle into her, and she let herself believe it. She let herself believe that two years was a bridge, not a wall. She let herself believe that she would cross it, that she would find him on the other side, that the life they'd promised each other was still waiting to be lived.

The sun was fully up now, spilling gold through the glass, catching the edges of his hair and turning them to light. She pulled back, her hands on his chest, and looked at him one last time.

"Two years," she said.

"Two years," he echoed.

She stepped back, and his hands fell from her waist, trailing down her hips before letting go. She felt the loss of his touch like a physical absence, a cold space where his warmth had been. She picked up her phone from the sheets, the dark rectangle cool in her palm, and she looked at it for a long moment before sliding it into her pocket.

"I'll keep the pendant," she said, her hand moving to the gold heart at her throat. "I'll keep it with me, even when I can't wear it. I'll keep it like I kept it for the last two years, and I'll bring it back to you when I'm free."

He nodded, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on her face. She could see the effort it took him to stay still, to let her walk away, and she felt a surge of love for him so fierce it almost broke her.

"Goodbye, Rohan," she said softly.

"Not goodbye," he said. "See you soon."

She smiled, a small, fragile thing, and she felt it reach her eyes. She picked up her skirt from the floor, stepping into it, doing up the button with fingers that only shook a little. She found her shoes under the edge of the bed and slipped them on, and she stood in the grey-gold light of his penthouse, dressed in the clothes he'd pulled off her the night before, and she felt like she was leaving a part of herself behind.

His hand caught her wrist one last time. She turned, and he was there, his eyes dark, his mouth set, and he pulled her into a kiss that was soft and fierce and full of everything they couldn't say. She felt his hand on the back of her neck, his lips moving against hers, and she kissed him back with everything she had, pouring two years of longing and fear and love into the space between them.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, his breath ragged.

"Come back to me," he said.

"I will."

She turned, and she walked to the door. She didn't look back. She couldn't. If she looked back, she'd never leave, and she had to leave. She had to walk out of this tower and into the life that was waiting for her, the life that had been built for her, the life she'd agreed to live.

The door closed behind her, and she stood in the hallway, her hand on the cold metal, her heart pounding in her chest. She pressed her palm against the door, feeling the solid weight of it between her and him, and she let herself breathe.

Then she walked to the elevator, and she pressed the button, and she watched the numbers climb toward her, and she felt the gold pendant cold against her collarbone, a small, insistent reminder of everything she was leaving and everything she was coming back to.

The elevator arrived with a soft chime, and she stepped inside, her reflection fractured in the brushed steel walls. She pressed the button for the lobby, and the doors slid shut, sealing her in a box of grey light and silence. She watched the numbers descend — 42, 41, 40 — each one a floor she was putting between herself and him, each one a step closer to the life waiting at the bottom. She reached up and touched the pendant, the gold heart warm now from her skin, and she held it for a moment, her fingers curled around it like a secret she was still keeping.

The lobby was empty when the doors opened. A security guard glanced up from his desk, nodded once, and looked away. She walked past him, her heels clicking on the marble floor, and she felt the cold morning air hit her face as she pushed through the glass doors. The city was awake now, cars streaming past, people hurrying along the sidewalks with coffee cups and briefcases, and she stood on the curb for a moment, letting the noise wash over her, letting it remind her that the world had kept turning while she'd been in that room with him.

She pulled out her phone. It was still dark, still silent, and she looked at it for a long moment before pressing the screen awake. Notifications flooded in — a message from her mother asking where she was, a missed call from her father, a text from Aarav that read simply: *Morning. See you at the venue.* She stared at his name for a long moment, at the casual ease of the words, and she felt the pendant press against her collarbone like a small, stubborn heartbeat.

She slid the phone back into her pocket and started walking. She didn't know where she was going, not yet, but her feet carried her forward, away from the tower, away from the grey light and the warm sheets and the man who was probably still standing at his window, watching her shrink into the city below. The pendant swung against her chest with each step, a steady, insistent rhythm, and she let it count the seconds, the minutes, the hours until she could come back to him.