Page 63 of Autumn L.A.W

Ezra smiled faintly. “Sounds delightful.”

“He sent me to boarding school in England. I kept running away.” She stirred her coffee without adding anything. “It’s hard to stay where you aren’t wanted. Easier to stay where you’re needed.”

“Needed and useful,” Ezra murmured.

“Yes.” Her jaw tightened. “Be indispensable, and they won’t send you away. At least that’s what I told my younger self. Be the only one who can read the glyphs. The only one who can navigate the systems. The only one who can be relied on. Then maybe they’ll keep you.”

He wanted to reach for her hand again. He didn’t want to stop the flow of her confession, so he didn’t.

“Bas ruined that system,” Sahara went on. Her voice softened. “Because she didn’t want me for what I could do. She wanted me for who I am. That’s disorienting too.”

Silence folded gently between them.

“It seems as if our younger challenges mirrored each other. But now… the obelisk?” Ezra asked.

She exhaled. “It scares me because it wants to pull me back into being a function instead of a person. Into living by duty instead of choice. Into being needed without being seen.”

“And you don’t want to leave your people,” he said quietly.

She swallowed. “No. Never.”

The imprint stirred like a low, distant drumbeat. Waiting. Her breath hitched.

Ezra’s hand closed gently around hers, without hesitation. Grounding her.

She let him.

Then, after a moment, she withdrew, softly. Without breaking the line of trust they’d just woven.

They returned to their coffee as if nothing had happened. But everything had.

A white cat hopped silently into Ezra’s lap and blinked at him as if conferring a title. He blinked back, tentative. The cat purred, immediately satisfied with its choice of human.

“Congratulations,” Sahara murmured. “You’ve been adopted.”

Ezra scratched the cat behind the ears. “I hope I’m worthy.”

Her phone buzzed.

She checked it, scanning quickly. “The container will be unloaded within the hour. We’ll have museum support arranged. And a tidal wave of paperwork.”

“Of course,” Ezra said. “It wouldn’t be archaeology otherwise.”

They paid the bill and moved onto the city, loud and alive, history sleeping under its skin.

The imprint whispered again. She paused.

Ezra’s hand settled instinctively at her waist.

She didn’t flinch.

“Still with me?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was steady. “But don’t let go.”

The university courtyard breathed history. Old stone walls wore ivy like feather boas, and the late afternoon light slid across the paving stones in long bands of copper and gold. Students passed in clusters and streams, their laughter and arguments drifting like chattering birds.

The crate did not belong here, and everyone knew it without knowing why. They skirted it instinctively, as if they might be asked questions they weren’t prepared to answer.