Chapter 116

Chapter 116
The sky had turned pale with morning by the time I saw it.

A slip of paper, small and square, was tucked beneath the edge of our porch railing like it had landed there on the breeze. I almost didn’t notice it as I stepped outside with Kael’s empty mug in one hand, the air still laced with the scent of the mint tea we’d shared. But something about the way the light caught on the edge of the parchment made me pause, the way it shimmered just slightly, not like magic but like memory.

I bent to pick it up, fingers brushing the grain of the wood, and when I turned the paper over, I found a symbol sketched in dark ink, rough but careful, as if drawn by someone who had only just learned how to hold meaning in their hands. It wasn’t a sigil from the realm, at least not one I recognized. It wasn’t ancient or glowing or alive with energy. It was simpler than that. A single line that curved into a spiral, then split into three delicate points.

And beneath it, a child’s name.

Leah.

I stared at the note for a long time, heart fluttering in my chest like wings trying to remember how to fly. There was no explanation. No message. No knock on the door. Just the quiet gift of a rune I hadn’t painted and a name I hadn’t expected.

Kael stepped out behind me, his hand resting on my lower back as he looked over my shoulder at the parchment. He didn’t say anything right away, but I felt the way his breath slowed, like something inside him had recognized the moment before his mind caught up to it.

“She left it,” I whispered, though I didn’t know who Leah was. I didn’t know where she came from or how she had known where to find us. “A child. She left this for us.”

Kael nodded, his thumb brushing against my spine through the soft fabric of my shirt. “It’s not a call,” he said quietly, “but it’s an echo.”

I didn’t know what to do with the paper, so I didn’t do anything at all. I just stood there, letting the morning deepen around us, the hush of birdsong rising behind the trees, the warmth of Kael’s presence holding me steady.

Later that afternoon, we walked into town. Not for answers, and not because the rune demanded it, but because something inside both of us needed to move forward instead of standing still. The market stalls were quieter now that summer had begun its slow fade into early fall, and the leaves had started to turn on the edges, soft gold and rust scattered like confetti across the cobblestone paths.

A few people nodded as we passed, familiar now in that small-town way, where names didn’t always matter as much as the rhythm of being seen.

We stopped at the bookshop first, where Kael picked up a volume of poetry I knew he would read slowly, one poem at a time, always dog-earing the corners no matter how many times I reminded him not to. Then we walked to the bakery, where the owner gave us two apple tarts without charging, just a quiet smile that said, “We’re glad you’re still here,” without needing to say the words aloud.

It was outside the library that I saw her.

A little girl, maybe seven or eight, her hair braided into two loose plaits, her jacket far too large for her narrow shoulders. She stood on the steps, clutching a notebook to her chest, her gaze flicking between us like she wasn’t sure if she should run or speak. And then, as if deciding she would only get one chance, she stepped forward and held out the notebook.

“This is for you,” she said.

Her voice was high but steady, and when I took the notebook, I saw that the same symbol from the porch was drawn on the first page—this time in crayon, a soft purplish-blue that smeared slightly beneath her fingers.

“It came in a dream,” she whispered. “You were there.”

I crouched down slowly, holding her gaze. “Did someone send you?”

She shook her head. “I just knew I had to find you.”

Kael stepped behind me, his presence as calm and grounding as always, and I felt his hand brush mine as he glanced down at the pages.

Inside were drawings, dozens of them.

Some looked like places I almost remembered, glimpses of the realm, softened through a child’s eye. A floating stone path, a garden that curled into itself, a doorway made of woven light. And others looked like this world, but changed—fractured, threaded with symbols half-finished, like she had caught glimpses of something beneath the surface of her own life and had tried to capture it before it slipped away.

“She’s seen echoes,” I said, my voice barely audible.

Kael nodded once. “And maybe she’s one.”

We didn’t ask her more. We didn’t need to. She handed over the notebook like it was something that had simply passed through her and belonged to us now, and when we thanked her, she just smiled and ran off down the street, her braid bouncing behind her like a ribbon tied to the wind.

That night, Kael set the notebook on the windowsill, open to the page with the rune. The candle beside it flickered low, and we sat together on the floor, knees touching, backs pressed against the cool wall. The house was quiet, but not empty. Something had changed, not loudly, but deeply.

The realm was closed.

But its echoes were not.

And somehow, in this quiet, ordinary town, the ripple of what we had carried was still moving, still finding its way forward through the hands of a child who had never stepped through the gates but had somehow remembered them anyway.

I leaned my head against Kael’s shoulder, breathing in the slow rhythm of this new kind of magic—not glowing, not summoned, but gently unfolding. He didn’t speak, but his hand found mine, and that was enough.

Not everything needed to be answered.

Some things only needed to be received.

And this, this was one of them.