A year passed. It was not a gentle year. It was the kind that hollows a person out and fills the space with something harder discipline, silence, purpose. Zara shed herself like a second skin: her accent reshaped, her walk relearned, her gestures stripped of every habit that might betray her. She became, piece by piece, someone her enemies would never recognise. And someone her pain could not easily find. One morning she stood at the window of Julian’s house and said, without turning around, “I think it’s time we went home.” Marcus looked up from his coffee. “Are you sure?” She turned then. Her eyes were calm not the calm of peace, but the calm of still water over a very deep drop. The warmth that had once lived in them so naturally was gone, replaced by something measured and cold and quietly certain. “More than ready,” she said. Marcus studied her for a long moment, then exhaled. “Alright. I’ll book the afternoon flight.” Julian appeared on the staircase, one hand on
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