His hand pressed slightly at my back. "Thank you."
We turned slowly. Below the railing, Ravenwood spread gold and endless, the city entirely indifferent to the fact that everything had shifted tonight.
"This time it's real," I said quietly.
He was quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he said finally, his voice low and certain. "This time it's real."
I rested my cheek against his shoulder and closed my eyes and let myself have it — the music, the lights, the warm air, our son somewhere behind us explaining the concept of babies to Mrs. Dora, the weight of Damien's hand at my back — all of it.
Damien stiffened slightly beneath my cheek, a barely perceptible tension that I'd learned to read like a language, and when I lifted my head and followed his gaze I saw it — just for a moment, just long enough.
A figure standing in the shadow of the access stairwell door at the far edge of the building's roofline, someone who had been watching long enough as the door swung slowly shut behind him.
