Page 140 of The Encore’s Crown

Her expression remains still.

“I’m a fuckup,” I continue. “I always have been. You’ve always been too good to me. Too good for me.”

“Kiri—”

“What did Julian say? A heart for charity?” I laugh without humor. “Maybe that’s what got under my skin the most. Fucking asshole.”

Radhika lifts the cup and saucer and sets them together on the table beside her. Then she reaches into a woven basket near the sofa and pulls out a ball of yarn and a crochet hook. A half-finished piece of deep blue fabric rests in her lap. I smile despite myself.

“Just like your mother.”

"It helps me think."

She finds the loop and begins working the hook through it.

“They say you turn into your parents,” I add. “Here I am, following in my father’s footsteps.”

Radhika slams the crochet into her lap. The force of it startles me.

“What you did tonight was not like your father.”

I stare at her.

“If anything, you protected her from a man like your father. Someone who preys upon people he believes can't fight back.”

“I laid him out on the floor.”

“Violence alone is not evil. Purpose matters.” Her eyes flash. “Your father hurts people because he enjoys their helplessness, their fear. You struck a man because he was trying to make a woman helpless. Don't compare the two simply because punishing yourself feels comfortable.”

I open my mouth. She points the crochet hook at me.

“Stop talking nonsense.”

I close it again. Radhika finds her loop and continues, her movements jittery with annoyance for the first few stitches before settling into an even rhythm. I sigh and slide lower in the chair until I’m nearly lying in it, the ice balanced over my hand. My gaze travels across the room.

“This is peaceful.”

She doesn’t look up. I take it all in, the quiet house. Her on the sofa with yarn pooled across her lap. Tea cooling between us. The strange domestic peace of it.

“This could’ve been us if I hadn’t been an idiot, huh?”

The crochet hook stops. When I glance at her, she’s staring at the fabric. Her throat moves as she swallows, and when she finally nods, it looks like the motion took effort to make.

“Perhaps.” She draws another loop through. “But it seems you have another lesson to learn, Vasuki.”

The name lands softly. Vasuki. The serpent king. The story she told me the night I confessed my love for her, when she understood I could be both dangerous or sacred, depending on what I chose to carry.

“It was nice,” I say. “For the five minutes I let myself believe seeing you again was a sign.”

Radhika’s hands slow.

“At the Meridian,” I continue. “The guys kept talking about fate. The gods. Some lesson I was too stupid to understand the first time.”

“Rafe?”

“Mostly.”

“Maybe I wasn't hard to convince.” I look at her. “You’re not exactly easy to forget.”