The voice didn’t register immediately. I felt it in her body before I saw it in her face—every muscle going still, like the world had just tilted.
Caliban inclined his head with dignified solemnity. “We have been waiting.”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
Confusion came first. Her brows knit. Her gaze flicked from Eloise to Caliban, then to the champagne, then to me.
Recognition slowly dawned on her face. The location. The fireplace. The deliberate positioning. The way I had steered her toward this side of the room.
Then the rupture.
It moved through her visibly.
Her mouth parted. Her breath left her in a soft, almost soundless exhale. I watched understanding assemble itself piece by piece behind her eyes.
Eloise stepped forward first, abandoning subtlety in favor of movement. “You really thought we’d let you become Dr. Artemis Ripley and not make a thing of it?”
Artemis made a broken little sound that would have undone me even if I had not already been undone.
Caliban extended one arm—formal, contained, offering without crowding. “Your achievement warranted attendance.”
He was clearly uncomfortable. Public displays of emotion did not suit him. But he was here. For her.
Because I had asked.
Becauseshe mattered.
And more so because Eloise was here.
Artemis’s gaze finally landed on the small card.
Dr. Artemis Ripley.
Her name looked different in ink.
Real.
She turned toward me slowly. Her throat worked. “Arthur.”
Eloise popped the champagne with a decisive twist. The cork ricocheted harmlessly off a beam overhead. “Controlled chaos,” she declared. “My specialty.”
Caliban accepted a glass with grave composure. “This is not chaos,” he said. “This is strategic celebration.”
Artemis moved then.
She stepped into my space and pressed both hands against my chest like she needed to confirm I was real.
“You said once,” I told her softly, “that asking for joy felt like a risk.”
Her eyes widened slightly.
“You asked that morning if we could explore before duty. I have never forgotten the way you braced for refusal.”
My father had taught me that love was a transaction, and approval was earned through dominance. He’d taught me that celebrating was indulgence.
Standing in this pub, with my friends flanking the hearth and my mate trembling in front of me, I understood how profoundly wrong he had been.
Joy was not indulgence. It was acknowledgment.
