Someone was already in the garden.
The small reading light floating at shoulder height near the greenhouse ruins, the familiar arrangement of someone who had been here long enough to settle into the space. He knew that light. He knew the way it sat slightly lower when she was reading something dense versus something she was moving through quickly.
It was sitting low tonight.
Aria looked up when he reached the midpoint of the garden, having heard him on the path well before he arrived. Her expression did what it did when she saw him — the particular quality of ease that she didn't extend to most people and had stopped pretending she didn't extend to him. Three weeks of shared evenings had made pretending more effort than it was worth.
Then she actually looked at him.
