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“Good afternoon, Charlotte.”

“Hello, Marcus. Have you two met?”

“Not formally,” Marcus said.

Charlotte gestured toward me. “Emilia Rossi. Marcus Barrett.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Emilia.”

“Likewise.”

Charlotte nudged a plate toward him. “Would you like a lemon pastry?”

Marcus glanced at the assortment before choosing one. “Thank you.”

“You picked my favorite,” Charlotte said.

The faintest hint of amusement crossed Marcus’s face. “Enjoy your afternoon.” He inclined his head once more before walking back down the path, disappearing behind the rose bushes. Charlotte watched him go for a moment before reaching for another pastry.

We lingered over lunch, enjoying the fresh air while we talked about books, upcoming lectures, and had a passionate debate over which dessert from Blackwood’s pastry chef was the best.

After saying goodbye to Charlotte, I made my way back toward the Research Pavilion, the familiar hum of the building settling comfortably around me.

* * *

The opera film night had been listed on Blackwood Hall’s resident calendar since my arrival, and I had been looking forward to it all week. Charlotte, naturally, had made sure the entire opera committee knew it.

The opera house bore almost no resemblance to the space I had stood in during the masquerade. I paused in the doorway just to take it all in.

The formal arrangements from the masquerade were gone. Cushions and blankets were scattered over the red velvet seats. Wall sconces cast warm light across the gilded balconies and the scent of buttered popcorn enveloped the room. Small tables held carafes of wine and tea, bowls of popcorn, pastries, and desserts. A screen stretched across the stage and the chandeliers had been lowered to their faintest glow, leaving the room suspended somewhere between candlelight and darkness.

I was surrounded by familiar faces. Priya had arrived before me and was engaged in an animated debate with one of the physicists about whether the evening’s film would be a romance or a tragedy. Mateo had claimed an entire center section and was distributing blankets. Near the back, Evelyn sat beside a full pot of tea, greeting people as they passed.

There was an intimacy to it I hadn’t expected. The blankets, the low light, the familiar faces. Somehow the grandeur of the opera house had disappeared without diminishing it.

Charlotte dropped into the seat beside me and pulled one of Mateo’s blankets across her lap. “I knew you’d love this.”

“You know me well.”

Around us, conversations softened as everyone settled into their seats. The lights dimmed and the screen brightened. For the next two hours, Blackwood Hall’s opera house became a living room shared by sixty people who had arrived there by following what they loved.

Priya leaned toward me sometime during the first act.

“This is genuinely good,” she said, sounding slightly surprised.

“Yes,” I said.

“Not just the film.” I looked at her. She gestured briefly at the room. Not at anything in particular. All of it.

“I know,” I said.

She nodded and turned back to the screen. The aria continued and my mind did not wander anywhere else.

I had lived in New York for nearly a decade. I had worked alongside brilliant people, made genuine friendships, and built a team of scientists who belonged together. Yet I had never known a place where an opera house felt so warm on a Monday night. What made Blackwood Hall different, I realized, was not the building itself. It was what the building made possible.

During intermission, Charlotte filled paper cups with a warm liquid from her thermos and refused to identify the drinks. Only after we had taken a sip did she reveal it was mulled cider, generously fortified with something that explained the warmth. Conversations rose around us and I could hear Georg offering a brief, unsolicited commentary on the soprano’s phrasing while a small group listened intently.

I laughed, genuinely and helplessly, comfortable enough to forget that I had known most of the people around me for only a matter of weeks.