Page 151 of The Threads Between

I stopped in the doorway.

It was both exactly as I remembered yet completely transformed.

The same tall windows, now dark with evening. The same heavy desk scarred by years of use. The same built-in bookshelves climbing from floor to ceiling. But the space had been claimed, remade, saturated with color.

Canvases leaned against every wall, some finished, some half-painted, some nothing more than charcoal ghosts waiting to become something else. Sketches covered the desk in layered stacks. Tubes of paint lay scattered. Brushes stood in jars of cloudy water.

The air smelled of turpentine and paper.

“You can step inside,” Miya said dryly. “It won't bite.”

I stepped inside slowly, afraid to disturb anything.

“You remember that gallery in London I told you about?” she said, already launching into explanation mode. “They want a solo show next year. Apparently, I'm 'emotionally resonant' or whatever.”

“Apparently,” I echoed faintly.

“I just sold this one,” she said immediately, pointing to a large canvas propped on an easel. “Private collector. He wanted it for his office in London.”

The painting stopped me where I stood.

Storm-dark sky split by veins of gold light. Not lightning but threads. Interwoven, fraying at the edges, some snapping into brilliance while others dissolved into shadow.

“It's incredible,” I said quietly.

She shrugged, trying for nonchalance and missing by a mile. “It's fine.”

I turned to her. “Fine doesn't usually make galleries call.”

She made a face. “Ugh, that woman was so intense. She kept saying I was a prodigy.”

My chest tightened.

“Prodigy,” I echoed before I could stop myself.

“Are you making fun of me?” She laughed, bumping my shoulder lightly. “You know if I hadn't sold that first painting at twelve, Mum would still be telling me to get a sensible job.”

Twelve.

The number sat on my chest and pressed down.

I watched her talk, the way her hands moved, the way her eyes lit up when she described color and light and composition, and grief threaded through the wonder until I could no longer tell them apart.

You were supposed to be gone.

Instead, she stood here, paint on her fingers, arguing about art like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

“You always were stubborn,” I said softly.

“Excuse you,” she said, grinning. “Who do you think I learned it from?”

I laughed, a real sound, shaky and unfamiliar, and for a moment the universe had bent just enough to let something broken fit back into place.

I turned, letting my gaze drift over all the paintings. They were tucked in everywhere. Small ones even placed in the shelves with the books. That's when I noticed it.

Gilt lettering dulled with age. Leather spines softened from handling. The edges of the pages faintly darkened, as if touched by hundreds of small hands over a lifetime.

Adventure stories.