She’d slipped a napkin into his palm as they landed. On it was a drawing of a lighthouse, and below it, an address and a time. “Next month,” she’d said. “I’ll be there. A temporary studio. Don’t be late.”

“It’s a lot,” she said, watching him take it in.

“You came,” she said, her voice muffled by the rain.

Around 2 AM, the rain stopped. The silence that followed was heavier.

She traced the rim of her cup. “Staying means roots. Roots mean being seen. And being seen means someone might notice how empty I actually am.”

She’d been in the middle seat, a tiny wisp of a woman with charcoal-smudged fingers and eyes the color of a winter sea. She wasn't reading a book or doom-scrolling. She was drawing. Intricate, impossible cityscapes that bled into the faces of extinct birds. When the turbulence hit and the woman next to him started hyperventilating, Elara had simply reached over, taken the stranger’s hand, and whispered, “The plane is just a boat sailing through an ocean of air. We’ll be fine.”

The rain on the tin roof of the bus stop sounded like a thousand tiny fingers drumming out a secret code. Lucas checked his watch for the tenth time. 7:52 PM. She was eight minutes late.