Edric closed his eyes for a moment.

It was not the girl he saw first, nor the impossible power she had carried, but the way the Crown Prince had looked at her. The way he had held her as if she were something rare enough to wound the world simply by existing. The way he had endured her fists and scratches without resentment, without pride, without the distance he wore so easily with everyone else.

There had been something almost disarming in it. Something painfully human.

That smile on the Crown Prince’s face was so brief, so unguarded, so unlike the cold brilliance people feared in him. It was the kind of smile that appeared only once in a lifetime, the kind a man did not give freely. And that girl had brought it out of him as though it belonged there.

Should that be erased just because it was not meant to exist?

Shouldn’t someone, at least, remember that it had happened?

"Edric, my friend," the King said softly, the words carrying the weight of an old bond and the cruelty of a command, as if friendship itself could make surrender feel noble.

Edric’s heart lurched again.

Slowly, almost against the instincts screaming in his chest, he stepped forward.

He could not refuse his king.

Could he?

Wasn’t this the correct thing to do?

And yet, even as he moved, one stubborn part of him recoiled from the thought of letting her vanish without witness.

Edric dropped to one knee.

"Your Majesty," he said, his voice rougher than he intended, "let me remember that she exists."

He did not know where the courage came from. Perhaps from the sight of the wrecked chamber. Perhaps from the unconscious Crown Prince lying helpless on the floor. Perhaps from the sight of Kael still standing in the haze of memory loss, blinking as though the world itself had been hollowed out around him.

Edric lifted his chin just enough to meet the King’s gaze.

"The Crown Prince never told me her name," he said, the lie leaving his mouth with an ease that startled even him. "I do not remember her face. Perhaps because His Highness wiped that memory from me already. But let me remember only this much—that she existed."

The King went still.

His expression shifted as he looked around the chamber, taking in the shattered room, the broken token, his son lying unconscious on the floor, and Kael standing dazed and vacant where he had been left.

His eyes landed on his hands, still trembling, still feeling the gentleness of the memories he felt in his son’s mind, even as he cruelly erased them.

Then his gaze settled on Edric, kneeling before him and trembling with the effort of asking for one small mercy.

He knew.

He knew Edric was lying.

But something in the King’s expression changed all the same. Something subtle, something deeper than suspicion. A faint wound, perhaps. Or a recognition of what he was asking his son to lose.

The King’s jaw tightened.

Then, after a long silence, he spoke.

"Help Vaelor back to his room."

And with that, he turned and walked away.

Only when the King’s footsteps faded did Edric finally draw in a breath. It left him in one long, shaking exhale, as though he had been holding the entire chamber inside his lungs.

But then the footsteps stopped.

Edric went rigid.

By the door, the King stood in silence for a moment longer.

"Did he call her ’hare’ by any chance, Edric?" he asked without turning around.

Edric straightened slowly, then looked toward him.

"I heard that too, Your Majesty," he said.

"And he is called the Fox, is he not?"

"Night Fox, Your Majesty."

The King remained motionless, staring back at the shattered chamber as though he could still see the shape of something that no longer belonged there.

"Maybe..." he said at last, and his voice sounded less like certainty than something far more fragile. "Maybe they are meant to be together. Maybe this does not matter."

Edric lowered his head.

How could it not matter?

How could it be nothing when one was forced to forget the other?

How were they supposed to survive the shape of that loss?

The King stood there for one final, unreadable moment, almost as though he had forgotten himself, forgotten the crown, forgotten the weight of what he had done.

Then he left.

And the chamber, left in his wake, felt colder than before.

-----

Aveline remained in the tree for what felt like hours, though she could not have said how long she had truly been there. She sat curled among the branches, one hand wrapped around the soulless token, her eyes fixed on it as if staring long enough might somehow restore the warmth that had once lived inside it.

Tears burned behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Not yet. Not while she was still trying to make sense of what had happened.

She could not tell whether Theron was safe, and that uncertainty gnawed at her far more than fear for herself. Because if he was in danger, then the hollow silence around the token was unbearable. If he was hurt, she would not know. If he was suffering, she could not reach him. And that helplessness sat heavy in her chest, colder than the evening air beginning to settle around her.

A soft stir in her lap drew her back to the present.

Hamilton shifted against her, small and warm and stubbornly alive, and Aveline blinked as though waking from a dream. The sky had darkened while she had been lost in her thoughts. Evening had come quietly, and the Arcanum below had begun to change with it, the bright edges of the day softening into shadow.

No one had come for her.

No one had called her name.

No one had even seemed to notice she was gone.

That thought hurt more than she wanted it to. She drew in a slow breath, forcing the ache down, and slipped the token carefully into her pocket as though she were tucking away a piece of something sacred.

Then she gathered Hamilton into her arms and pressed him close to her chest, holding him as if he were the only steady thing left in the world.

She was still high in the tree, far above the ground, with no idea how she was supposed to get down.

Well, Theron would have helped her.

The thought rose automatically, and with it came a tightening in her throat. She swallowed it back before the feeling could take hold of her. This was not the moment to fall apart.

Yes, Theron would have helped her. He always seemed to appear when she needed him. But he was not here now. She had felt his danger too, felt the strain and the pain through the token, and still she did not know whether he had escaped it or not.

She was safe, at least. For now.

Theron was the one she worried about.

And if she could not help him directly, then she would at least stop behaving like a helpless child. He was the Crown Prince. He was someone people knew, someone people feared, someone she could find if she was determined enough. Sulking would not protect him. Crying would not bring him closer. She needed to be stronger than this.

"Grow up, Aveline," she whispered to herself, her voice trembling only slightly. "Be strong. For Theron."

She sucked in a deep breath and looked down.

The height made her stomach twist. The world below seemed absurdly far away, the ground hidden in shadow and distance. Her heart lurched once, hard enough that she almost turned back, but she tightened her hold on Hamilton instead, as though the small creature could lend her courage by simply trusting her to keep him safe.

"One step at a time, Aveline," she murmured, more to steady herself than to give herself instructions. "Just one little step."

Her fingers closed around the branch above her, and she eased herself downward carefully, one movement at a time. Slowly. Deliberately.

The bark scraped against her palms, and the strain in her arms deepened with every inch she descended. She dared to glance down once and felt her head spin immediately, the drop stretching below her like a cruel invitation to panic.

She shut her eyes at once and forced herself to breathe.

Her hands trembled.

Her arms ached from holding herself up for so long.

Her legs shook from fear.

And still she kept moving.

"You can do this," she told herself under her breath, though her voice had turned thin and fragile. "You have to. You only have yourself to depend on now."

The words landed harder than she expected. They were not comforting. They were the truth. And truths, Aveline was beginning to realize, were often far less gentle than lies.

Clenching her jaw, she lowered herself another step.

Another.

But halfway down, her arms began to shake so badly that she had to stop and cling harder to the branch, breathing through the pain. Her muscles burned. Her grip slipped slightly, then tightened again. She kept her eyes closed for a moment, gathering herself against the rising fear, before forcing them open and looking down once more.

She was still far from the ground.

Still afraid.

Still alone.

And yet, despite all of it, she kept going.

"Need help?"

She heard a familiar voice.