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“Dinner’s ready,” I say. “Dayton’s showing off his new cooking skills.”

She doesn’t move.

Carefully, I take a few steps in. “You don’t have to talk. Just eat. Or don’t. But the sky’s pink, and I think it’s trying to impress you.”

She doesn’t answer.

I lower myself onto the corner of the bed. “You don’t have to be okay. But you don’t have to be alone either. Especially because I saw something that looks suspiciously like cake, and I’m optimistic it’s better than Dayton’s tarts.”

A breath.

Then the smallest shift, shoulders relaxing, just slightly.

“I’ll come,” she murmurs.

I nod and rise, offering her my hand like a bridge across a dark river.

Rosalina doesn’t say much as we leave her room.

Farron emerges from the basement, carrying an old ukulele. “Was looking for books,” he says, lifting it up. “Found this instead.”

Dayton pokes his head out of the kitchen, holding a platter of fish. “Planning to serenade me, love?”

“Only if you ask nicely.” Farron grins back. “But first, I’m starving.”

Dinner is already on the table. Garlic prawns, halibut crisp at the edges, fiddleheads and greens dressed in something lemony. We pile into chairs, pass plates, and I take a portion to Aurelia’s room. She doesn’t say much, but she takes the food, and the curtains stay open.

Keldarion, Caspian, and Wrenley arrive partway through the meal. Kel and Caspian squish in at the table, while Wrenley hovers near the door as usual.

“This is…actually good,” Caspian says, surprised.

Dayton smirks. “High praise from the Prince of Thorns himself.”

A heavy silence settles in the air before Farron launches into all he’s learned of the human realm from reading George’s old National Geographic magazines.

Caspian will never be the Prince of Thorns again.

Rosie doesn’t speak, but she finishes her greens and eats half her cake.

It’s not perfect. But it’s something. And tonight, that’s more than enough.

After dinner, we drift toward the living room.

I crouch by the hearth, coaxing a fire to life. The wood catches, the glow spilling across the furniture in soft amber.

Farron settles into the armchair with the dust-covered ukulele on his lap, already fiddling with the tuning pegs. “Might be able to get this thing to work,” he says, plucking a string that groans in protest. “I think it’s got a bit of music left in it.”

Keldarion turns to Rosalina. “Will you stay for a song?”

She hesitates, eyes flicking to her bedroom. But she nods and perches on the edge of the sofa bed beside him, hands folded in her lap.

Wrenley hovers by the open window, half inside, half out, like a cat not sure if it wants to be feral or a pet. The night breeze drifts into the room, carrying the scent of new grass and something sweeter. A whisper of summer’s approach, perhaps.

For a moment, no one speaks.

“This one always made me a little sad. It’s very old,” Farron says. “My grandmother used to sing it, then my mother.”

Farron clears his throat and plays, his fingers hesitant at first, testing the age of the strings. The ukulele wheezes and hums like it’s waking from a hundred-year sleep, but it finds its voice under his hands. And then, he sings.