Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city sprawled in twilight—a carpet of golden lights bleeding into the violet sky. Your reflection stared back at you: a woman in her late twenties, still in her fieldwork robes, a faint trace of Egyptian dust clinging to the cuffs.

Behind you, the drawing room smelled of lavender and old parchment. A half-finished chess game sat on the mahogany table—Blaise’s doing, abandoned when he’d been called away. A ribbon Draco had refused to wear lay coiled on the armchair like a silk serpent.

And in the corner, curled on the velvet settee with a picture book spread across her lap, was Sylvia.

Outside, the first stars were beginning to pierce the dusk.