“I wanted to see the house.” Keanu’s gaze swept the kitchen. The crest above the mantle. The framed architectural drawings in the hall. “And the man.”
“Both are available for inspection.”
Keanu’s mouth twitched. Almost. “I brought wine.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I brought wine and a prenuptial outline. But we can start with the wine.”
Kael, from across the table: “I like him.”
Somewhere between the main course and dessert, a lull opened in the noise—Revka refilling glasses, Kael making Keanu explain the prenuptial outline clause by clause with escalating theatrical outrage. Lumi was laughing. Zeir was watching her laugh. He didn’t notice Soren had moved until the older man settled into the chair beside him, unhurried.
Soren set down his wine. Looked at the table for a moment. Then, without preamble:
“I saw your sketchbooks. On the shelf.”
Zeir met his father’s eyes.
“Yes.”
Soren nodded once. The slow, deliberate nod of a man who had spent thirty years not saying something and had just found the one sentence that contained all of it. His hand came down briefly on Zeir’s forearm—a beat of contact, no more. Then he picked up his wine and turned back toward the table.
That was all. It was enough.
Lumi watched her brother move through the dinner. He was doing what Keanu always did—observing without appearing to. The way Zeir pulled Lumi’s chair out. The way Revka included her in conversation without condescension. The way Soren studied the band on Lumi’s finger with an expression that belonged to a man seeing his own abandoned art reflected in his son’s future.
After dinner, Lumi found Keanu in the hallway. He was studying Soren’s old designs—the architectural drawings. The buildings he’d drawn before the elders silenced him.
“He’s acceptable.”
“Acceptable?” She leaned beside him. “He carried me out of a warehouse while bleeding from six wounds and refused to put me down until the medic physically blocked him.”
“Acceptable. I didn’t say exceptional.” Keanu paused. His jaw worked—the Stone family jaw, the one she’d inherited, the one that clenched when emotions exceeded available vocabulary. “The carrying was noted.”
She bumped her shoulder against his arm. He bumped back. Siblings. The shorthand of a lifetime.
“He draws,” Keanu said. “I saw the sketchbooks. On the shelf, visible. The work is remarkable.”
“It is.”
“And the piece on the studio wall. The two figures.”
“You saw that?”
“He showed me.” Keanu turned to her. The lawyer face was gone. What remained was the brother who’d sat on her studio floor years ago and told her they couldn’t win the Harlan fight and carried the guilt of that conversation like a stone in his pocket ever since. “He brought me to the third floor and said, ‘This is what she made me brave enough to finish.’”
Lumi pressed her lips tight. Blinked. Refused to cry in a hallway for the second time in two weeks.
“That’s not a legal assessment.”
“No.” Keanu’s hand came up and squeezed her shoulder. Briefly. The most physical affection he’d shown in public in years. “It’s a brother’s assessment.”
From the kitchen, Kael’s voice carried: “Lumi, your fiancé is doing the thing where he stares at the door you left through like a wolf tracking a scent and it’s making your brother uncomfortable and me delighted.”
“That’s my cue,” Lumi said.
“Go.” Keanu nodded toward the kitchen. “He’s acceptable.”
