I didn't sleep much that night.
Not because I was restless—but because my mind wouldn't stop echoing with soft words and half-felt touches. Diana's voice still lingered in the air like incense—velvet and confident, peeling back my walls one syllable at a time. Her kiss on my cheek hadn't faded. It hadn't tried to claim me, hadn't demanded anything in return.
It just stayed.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
When morning came, it was Lillian who found me first.
I had just stepped into the greenhouse—the one nestled behind the academy's western wing, quiet and usually empty this early. But as soon as the doors creaked open and the humidity curled around me, sweet and soft with the scent of earth and blossoms, I saw her.
Lillian Aurora.
She was already inside, kneeling beside a bed of moon lilies, her soft pink hair tied in a loose braid that draped over her shoulder. She looked like something out of a painting—delicate, radiant, her pale fingers gently brushing dirt over a newly planted stem.
She glanced up when she heard me, and her smile bloomed brighter than the flowers.
"Sera," she said gently, rising to her feet. "You came."
"I said I would," I replied, a little breathless, already slipping out of my coat to hang it on the nearby hook.
She walked over, elegant as ever, wiping her hands on a linen cloth tucked into her apron. "Still, I half expected Claire to pull you into some rooftop stunt, or Camille to lock you in her studio."
"She tried," I said, and she laughed—a sound like silver bells.
"Of course she did."
Lillian stepped closer, then paused. "Would it be alright if I…?"
I nodded.
She reached out and took my hands in hers—warm, clean, gentle. She squeezed them softly, like she was grounding herself in the moment.
"I missed this," she said. "Not just your presence, but the way the air feels when you're near. It's hard to explain."
"Try," I whispered, caught off guard by how much I wanted to understand it.
She tilted her head, her green eyes glowing like emeralds. "You feel like... the moment before the rain starts. When everything hushes. Like the world's holding its breath because something beautiful is about to happen."
My cheeks went warm. "You've always known how to make me feel like more than I am."
"You are more than you think," she said simply. "You always were. Even when you tried to hide behind sarcasm and silence."
"You and Diana have been spending too much time together," I muttered.
She laughed again and tugged me gently forward. "Come. Help me with the lilies."
We knelt together beside the bed of flowers, the sun filtering through the greenhouse glass in golden, dappled light. The world slowed. The only sound was the soft rustle of leaves, the rhythmic scrape of trowel against soil, and Lillian's soft hums as she worked.
She passed me a small potted seedling. "This one's yours."
I looked down at it, confused. "Mine?"
"I saved it," she said. "When you left, I didn't know if you'd ever come back. But I kept watering it anyway. I told myself that if it bloomed, it meant you'd return."
My throat tightened. "And did it?"
She smiled. "It bloomed yesterday."
My fingers curled gently around the pot, holding it as delicately as she had. "Thank you."
"You don't need to thank me," she whispered. "Just don't disappear again."
"I'm not planning to."
She leaned in, her shoulder brushing mine. "Good. Because if you do… I'll follow you."
I turned to her. "Lillian—"
Her fingers brushed my cheek.
"I've always been gentle with you," she said, voice barely audible over the wind rustling through the glass panes. "Because I thought that's what you needed. And maybe I was right. But I need you to know, Sera, I'm not afraid to fight for you either. I never have been."
I stared into her eyes, stunned by the power behind her softness. This wasn't fragile affection. It was steady. Quiet. Fierce in its patience.
She leaned in slowly, giving me time to pull away.
I didn't.
Her lips touched mine—warm, soft, tentative at first. But then fuller, surer, and something inside me tipped forward like petals catching sunlight. I kissed her back. Slowly. Carefully.
And when we parted, her forehead rested against mine, her breath mingling with mine.
"I told myself I wouldn't kiss you yet," she murmured, a playful smile in her voice.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted it to be perfect."
I laughed quietly. "That was pretty close."
We stayed there, forehead to forehead, surrounded by the scent of fresh earth and blooming flowers, wrapped in the quiet safety of green and gold.
Eventually, she pulled back and brushed her fingers through my hair, gently rebraiding the strands that had come undone.
"I want to show you something," she said after a moment.
She stood and walked toward a wooden cabinet near the far wall, unlocking it with a silver key from her pocket. Inside were several glass jars filled with dried petals, pressed herbs, bundles of lavender tied with string.
And in the center—
A letter.
My letter.
The one I had written her before I left.
"You never opened it," I said, stunned.
"I didn't need to," she said, reaching out and closing the door again. "It wasn't your words I missed. It was your voice."
And just like that, I couldn't speak.
Not because I didn't have anything to say.
But because she'd already heard everything I hadn't known how to say out loud.
I stayed still long after she closed the cabinet.
The silence between us was full—brimming with warmth, unspoken trust, and something deeper, something I wasn't sure I had words for yet. Lillian turned back to me slowly, her green eyes shimmering like the last drop of sunlight on a glass lake.
"You really didn't read it?" I asked again, voice softer now, more curious than anything.
She shook her head, fingers still toying with the edge of her apron. "I was afraid that if I read it, I'd let myself believe it was enough."
"Enough?" I echoed.
"To keep loving you from a distance."
My heart caught on the edge of her words.
"I didn't want a letter," she continued, stepping closer. "I wanted you."
I looked down at my hands, still faintly smudged with earth. "I didn't know if I could be… enough. For any of you."
Her hand came to rest over mine, cool from the air but steady. "You never had to be enough. You just had to be you."
I wanted to believe that. I was starting to. But old fears clung like thorns, quiet and sharp in the corners of my mind.
"I'm not the same person I was when I first walked into this academy," I whispered. "Back then I just wanted to survive the story. Keep my head down. Avoid the heroines."
A soft laugh escaped her—breathy, fond. "How's that working out for you?"
I glanced up and met her gaze, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Terribly."
She leaned in, her forehead brushing mine again, and for a moment we just breathed. The kind of closeness that felt fragile and indestructible at once.
"You're allowed to be different now," she murmured. "You've grown. We all have."
"I don't know what I am now."
"Then let's find out together."
I closed my eyes, letting those words settle inside me like roots curling into soft soil. Let's find out together. It sounded so easy. So safe. But I knew it wouldn't be. Nothing about this was easy. Nothing about being surrounded by five impossibly beautiful, maddeningly devoted girls was ever going to be simple.
And yet… with Lillian's hand still in mine, it didn't feel impossible either.
We sat down again beside the lilies, not quite ready to return to the rest of the world. The greenhouse held a sacred hush—just us, the sound of petals shifting faintly in the breeze, the quiet hum of bees somewhere outside.
Lillian pulled a folded blanket from a nearby bench and draped it across both our laps. She curled beside me, her head resting lightly on my shoulder, the braid down her back falling over my arm like a ribbon of soft silk.
I found myself speaking before I meant to. "Do you ever wish things were… simpler?"
She hummed. "No."
I blinked. "Really?"
"Simplicity is comforting," she said, voice slow and thoughtful, "but it can also be hollow. I don't want a life that's easy. I want one that's real. I want the kind of story that makes my heart ache—in the best way."
I looked at her. "And this—us… this is that kind of story?"
She turned her face toward mine, her green eyes glowing faintly in the light of the setting sun. "Isn't it?"
I swallowed. "Maybe. I just don't know how to write the ending."
"Then don't," she said simply. "Let it keep going. Let it change."
I wanted to kiss her again.
Not because it was romantic. Not because it was expected.
But because she made it feel okay to be confused, to be in-between, to want everything and nothing and all of it at once.
She must've seen something in my face, because she smiled gently and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. "Don't think so hard, Sera."
"You make it sound easy."
"It's not," she admitted, her hand resting against my cheek again, this time longer, more deliberate. "But I'm here. We all are. You don't have to figure it out alone."
My fingers curled into the fabric of her sleeve.
"I'm afraid," I admitted.
"Of what?"
"Of choosing wrong."
Her smile didn't falter. "There's no wrong choice when it comes to love. There's only what you're willing to fight for."
Her words settled into me like sunlight on frozen ground. Warming. Thawing.
I let my head fall onto her shoulder, and she tilted hers to rest against mine.
We didn't speak for a while after that.
The world outside kept moving—birds returning to nests, the sun dipping lower, the breeze picking up just enough to rattle the glass. But we sat still. Together.
I listened to the rhythm of her breath, the soft beat of her heart beneath her dress, the faint flutter of butterflies in my chest that refused to leave.
Lillian didn't ask me for a decision. She didn't demand clarity or devotion or declarations.
She just gave me presence.
And in a life that once felt like borrowed pages from someone else's novel, that presence felt like mine.