I met Lyra in her herb garden the way we always used to.

The morning light filtered through the greenhouse glass, warm and golden, casting long shadows across the rows of plants. Lyra knelt among them, her fingers working the soil with practiced ease, her hair falling across her face.

She looked up when I approached, her smile bright and immediate and so completely Lyra.

"Val! You came."

"Of course I came." I sat on the stone bench beside her, the cold seeping through my clothes. "I always ...