Midafternoon, a courier in a neat cap tapped at the studio door. “Delivery for Rebecca,” he said, polite and bored. Fiona signed, suspicious on principle, and set the long white box on the table. Inside, nestled in tissue, lay a bouquet of white lilies and midnight roses. It was indulgent and ominous at the same time. There was no card. "who could this be from? " Fiona asked. Natalie shrugged. "A fan? " she suggested. Fiona scoffed. Natalie leaned in and the scent rose, cool and heavy. Lilies—sweet, almost funerary. Roses, cut before their full bloom, that peppery green of stems. Underneath, a thread of something else… metallic, like rain on iron. Her stomach flipped. The room blurred. A sound—not sound—memory, perhaps: the crackle of tires on gravel. A laugh behind her shoulder not meant for her. A white cuff speckled dark. A ring—gold, carved with a griffin—spinning where it fell, the world holding its breath to listen. She was remembering. was it... That night? “Natal
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