Spring came.
This should not have been remarkable. Spring came every year, in every life, with the same patient indifference to whether or not anyone was ready for it. I had seen spring nine times and it had never once waited for me.
This spring I was ready.
The plum tree in the garden bloomed first — it always did. The one Lord Baek's grandfather had planted, that had been old in the lives when I didn't reach spring at all. I was in the garden when the first blossoms opened, sitting on the bench with my archive work, and I looked up at exactly the right moment and the tree was simply— there. Pink and white and entirely unconcerned with everything that had led to this moment.
I stayed for a long time.
