Amara heard it.
She heard the permission in it, the pathway being cleared, the door being held open by two people who loved her by a choice remade daily, and she felt the pull of it the way you feel the pull of sleep when you have been awake for too long.
The pull of being taken somewhere quiet. Of letting someone else hold the weight for an hour, or a day, or however long it took for her hands to stop shaking.
She looked at Julian's face.
He was watching her with an expression she recognized, the one that had no performance in it, the one that existed only in the spaces where no one else was meant to see it. The expression meant we could go. I will take you somewhere safe. The rest of this can wait.
She loved him for it.
She loved him for it, and it almost undid her entirely, and she stood in that almost-undoing for exactly one breath.
