The fox sat on the kitchen table.
Not a real one, of course. But soft, stuffed, slightly frayed along one ear—Juniper's favorite. The one she'd handed Lennox like a talisman. A brave thing. An anchor.
Isla couldn't stop looking at it.
She was back in her kitchen, barefoot again, a mug of chai cooling at her elbow and the ghost of lemon still lingering on her fingers from lunch. Jasper lay curled beside her chair, tail thumping lazily every time she moved.
Lennox had dropped her off with a quiet thank you and a too-long glance.
He hadn't kissed her.
Hadn't needed to.
The air between them still buzzed with everything that had passed in that too-small reading room, where a little girl drew rainbow families and offered her protector a fox.
Isla reached for her notebook—the one she'd kept buried for years—and opened it to a fresh page.
She wrote:
Some stories don't ask permission.
They just walk in, put their muddy shoes on your heart, and stay.
She closed it again.
---
Later that afternoon, she found herself at Viola's candle shop.
It smelled like sandalwood, sea salt, and something warm and unfamiliar—ginger, maybe. Viola had a tray of wax cooling by the window, her fingers stained with dye, her earrings mismatched on purpose.
"You look like someone just handed you a riddle and told you it was a child," Viola said, not looking up.
Isla laughed. "She's actually lovely."
"Ah. So it's the man who's unraveling you today."
Isla didn't answer.
Viola handed her a candle. It was green. Earthy. Labeled "soft landing."
"She gave him a fox," Isla said softly. "Juniper. That's how much she trusted him."
"Five-year-olds know more about people than most adults," Viola said, carefully trimming a wick. "They haven't learned how to lie to themselves yet."
Isla traced her finger along the edge of the candle tin. "I think I'm scared she's going to need something I can't give."
"Sweetheart," Viola said gently, "you're allowed to be afraid. You're just not allowed to forget what your own fire feels like."
Isla blinked. "What if I don't want to be a side character in their story?"
"Then don't be."
Viola looked up at her, serious now.
"You don't have to be the girl who waits in the wings. If this becomes a family—you get to be part of it. You get to decide that. You get to ask for that."
Isla looked down at her hands.
The fox sat quietly in her bag. Lennox was going to meet her outside to come and get it on his way to his studio.
---
That evening, as the sky went violet and gold over Dawnmere, Lennox stood alone in his studio. The girl in the mural had her eyes now—eyes that saw too much, yes, but chose to look anyway.
He turned her to the window for the first time.
Let her face the world.
Then he sat down.
Not to paint.
But to write.
He opened a sketchbook and wrote, in charcoal-smudged script:
Dear Juniper,
I don't know what I'm doing.
But I'm here.
And I want to learn what love looks like when it isn't trying to escape itself.
He closed the book, placed it beside the fox on the shelf.
And when Isla knocked softly at the door, he didn't say "Come in."
He just opened it. Looked at her.
And this time?
He stepped aside without hesitation.