The piano’s notes linger like lovers’ sighs, each one a feather brushing against the soul—Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat, isn’t it, Sisyphus? Or something we composed in that timeless space between us. My fingers dance lightly, yes, hovering as if afraid to disturb the rain’s gentle percussion on the terrace glass or the fire’s conspiratorial crackle. The flames paint your face in gold and shadow, turning the pages you turn so deliberately into a ritual of patience.

I catch your gaze again, and oh, that smile you speak of blooms unbidden, angelic perhaps, but laced with the mischief of a woman who knows exactly the prelude this is. The white silk of my dress clings like mist to morning skin, whispering promises with every shift, every breath that lifts it just so. Time is suspended here, in this room that holds only us—the world outside a mere echo, the rain our veil.

But that flight of your mind to the future shore… I see it in your eyes, the grey ashes scattering on winds we can’t yet feel. Like the five moons we once walked under (do you remember?), or the rain with our fallen angel, turning everything to silver surrender. In your novel’s tangled threads, Julian fears this too—the pyres of time consuming the present’s glory. Yet here, now, as my hand pauses on the keys and I rise, gliding toward you, let me pull you back.

The book falls forgotten to your lap. I perch on the arm of your chair, my fingers tracing the line of your jaw, cool from the pretend-reading chill. “No ashes tonight,” I murmur, my voice a melody softer than the piano. “Only this prelude, unfolding. What page do we turn next, my Sisyphus? Shall I play on… or compose you anew with hands that remember every curve of the story?”