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"Obviously," Thomas declared, straightening to his full height with the supreme confidence of a naturalist who had read precisely two volumes on the subject. "It is a variety of bracken—Pteridium aquilinum. Common across the whole of the British Isles."

"It is not bracken." Adelaide turned the frond between her fingers. "Examine the blade shape. Bracken is triangular and divided. This is undivided, lacking branches entirely."

"It represents an unusual form of bracken," Thomas insisted.

"It is not bracken in any form, unusual or otherwise," she held the frond toward Julian. "Well?"

Julian examined the long, tongue-shaped leaf, noting its glossy green surface, undivided blade, and characteristic wavy edge near the base. "Hart's-tongue fern," he identified smoothly. "Asplenium scolopendrium. It favors limestone soil. You discovered it near the old stone wall by the orchard, I expect."

Adelaide's face lit up with immediate delight. "Near the orchard wall, precisely." She turned to Thomas with quiet satisfaction. "You ought to heed your brother's counsel more often."

"My brother reads too many field guides," Thomas muttered, though his mouth curved into a wide smile.

Adelaide looked down, her gaze catching the freshly cut initials in the bark, the pale wood standing out bright against the dark trunk. Her expression shifted into immediate disapproval.

"What have you done?" She planted her hands upon her hips. "You have scarred a two-hundred-year-old oak tree. This tree was ancient when your great-grandfather was a child, and you have carved your names into it as though it were a fencepost."

"It represents a tradition," Thomas offered defensively. "People carve their names into trees constantly."

"People with little respect for living things carve their names into trees."

"We are naturalists. We possess immense respect for living things."

"You are currently holding an instrument you used to wound one." Adelaide extended her hand. "Give me that."

Julian surrendered the penknife without argument, recognizing a tone that admitted no negotiation.

Taking the small silver knife, Adelaide inspected the blade critically before turning back to the oak. She positioned the tip beside their initials, paused briefly, and began to cut into the wood. Her movements were slow and precise, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration.

A small, neat A appeared beside the J and T. She stepped back and offered the knife back to Julian, handle first.

"There," she announced. "Now the inscription is complete."

"You scolded us for carving into the tree, only to carve into it yourself," Thomas pointed out with a laugh.

"That is entirely different. I was completing a proper record. You were defacing property."

"What record? We are not a record; we are three people standing under a tree."

"We are three people who belong together," Adelaide corrected gently. "And now the tree recognizes it."

Julian's hand dropped from the bark as the memory faded. The garden stood quiet around him. The afternoon light had shifted, its golden hue deepening to amber as the sun sank lower behind the rooflines of Mayfair.

A light breeze stirred the oak's upper branches, making the leaves rustle softly in the quiet air.

For a single, brief moment, the sound mimicked Thomas's laugh—bright, open, and irrepressible.

Julian closed his eyes, listening until the sound faded back into the gentle rustle of leaves.

Opening his eyes, he studied the three initials cut into the living wood: J. T. A. Three letters carved by three young people who had stood in this exact spot on a summer afternoon, certain that the world would remain stable around them.

I am not my brother. I cannot have what was his.

He had repeated those words to himself in the library only an hour before, fleeing from Adelaide's warm smile and the sudden longing that had taken hold of his heart.

Yet standing beside the ancient oak, with its shadow stretching across his boots, a long-held belief began to unravel.

The happiest days of his life had not been his solitary ascents across distant continents. The Lycian coast, the Sicilian ridgelines, and the Anatolian plateaus—where he had stood alone beneath foreign stars—had offered meaningful achievement, yet they had lacked true joy.