✶✶✶
SOPHIE talked about her birth and the disfigurement that came with it. She talked about the bullying she’d endured at school. About her hopeless, quiet love for Dr. Adolphin. Even her suicide attempt and how, in the aftermath, memories of a previous life had come flooding back.
She spoke of how that awakening had once filled her with strength, but how lately, that strength felt as if it was fading away.
Isadora listened the entire time, quietly munching her way through a plate of baked goods but never once interrupting. Only when Sophie finished did she speak.
“So all those wise things you said to me were…”
“Not mine. They were Mariko’s. Sorry. I’m a fraud, aren’t I?”
“A fraud?” Isadora drifted off into thought, staring at the crumbs on the plate before her. “I don’t think you’re a fraud. Not exactly. But that explains it. I knew I smelled a whole lot of old-lady energy coming off you.”
“How rude.”
“That said… Does it really matter?”
“Huh?”
Isadora tilted her head. “This Maricoh—she died, right? Lived her life, passed on… It’s not her that’s right before me—it’s you.”
“Um…”
Mariko, Sophie thought—clearly a little hard for the local tongue.
“Your beautiful mother gave birth to you, nursed you. Your dad raised you, doted on you like any father should. You’re what, seventeen now? I don’t know much about this ‘previous life’ business, but who’s to say we’re not all reincarnated souls carrying pieces of someone else? Maybe you just happened to remember.
“You grew up here. Studied your butt off. Had your manners drilled into you by that terrifying head maid. You’re the one who opened this salon. You’re the one who helps people. So I ask again: Does it really matter?”
Sophie didn’t answer.
Isadora smiled gently. “It’s only natural you’ve gone all soft—you’re a girl in love. Please, if I’ve said anything you disagree with, you’re free to call me out on it,” she said with another tilt of her head.
“I…don’t disagree with you,” Sophie replied.
“Good! Then let’s stop fussing over that and get to the real subject.” Isadora leaned in, eyes sparkling. “This boy of yours.”
“Does it really matter?”
Isadora’s offhandedness shouldn’t have helped—but it did. The lightness of it, the way she moved on without ceremony, unknotted something in Sophie. She started talking.
“He’s not mine,” she said first.
“What’s he like? Is he handsome?” Isadora leaned in further.
“He’s tall. Has pretty black hair. One of the most handsome men I’ve ever met.”
Kurt’s face came to her then, just as it had been that day. So close. So impossibly close.
“What does he do? How old is he?”
“He’s a healer. Early twenties…I think?”
Only then did Sophie realize she didn’t actually know his age.
“Where did you meet him? What do you talk about?”
“He came to my salon on official business. We talk about…books, I guess. And… Well, not much else.”
She paused, thinking. They hadn’t had many long conversations—just brief exchanges, shared magic, light banter. Small, passing moments. Nothing significant at all.
“Did you ever promise to meet again?”
“No. He just borrows books…then comes back to return them.”
“Oh, that’s just an excuse to see you.”
“I don’t think it is. He really loves reading.”
“Then that makes two of you,” Isadora said, grinning. “What about you? When did you start liking him?”
At that question, Sophie’s voice evaporated.
When.
When had she started liking him?
Ever since the day he’d barged into her salon unannounced, demanding to see her without rhyme or reason, she’d found him vaguely annoying. Frustrating in a way she couldn’t quite name. Always with that serious face. Always being too blunt, too careless, like her feelings were some distant afterthought. Yet somehow, everything he said struck straight to the core of her.
He pried it open—that sealed-off part of her, the quiet box where she’d hidden away all her deepest, most fragile feelings. He’d pried it open without hesitation, like it was nothing, like it was the most natural thing to do. He’d pried it open and dragged everything out into the light.
So, when did that change?
When had irritation turned into longing?
When had she started waiting—truly waiting—to hear his voice again? To see his face reappear in the doorway?
She wanted him to return safely. To be alive and well.
She wanted to run her fingers across his scarred back, to let him know it was all going to be all right.
She felt a joy that shook her when those deep, midnight-black eyes were fixed on her. When his arms were around her. When his voice, both cool and fiery at once, whispered into her ear.
Did it come like lightning?
Did it come like a slow and gentle snowfall?
Of these two options, Sophie couldn’t say it was either. Nor could she say it wasn’t both.
She had no idea when it happened—just that it had.
Somewhere inside her heart—right in the middle of that once empty, abandoned place—there was now a single chair.
A single chair that had Kurt’s name written on it.
“Did he confess his feelings for you?”
Sophie replayed his words from that day over and over again. “I want you, Miss Sophie Olzon.” If that wasn’t a confession, what was?
Instead of an answer, she gave a deep blush. But to Isadora, that might as well have been one and the same.
“So he did! I have to give it to him. Then? What did you say back?”
“I told him I’d only dirty him.”
“What?” Isadora’s face became unamused.
“I said I couldn’t bear it if I were the reason he was laughed at. If he were mocked.”
“…What?”
“I said if he were to look at me like a monster, I’d die.”
Saying it again, those words she’d left him with that day, she could taste them on her tongue. They were bitter. Sour. They clung to the back of her throat until the tears came.
She’d said those things. Those awful, nasty things.
How could she have—when he had always meant every single word he gave her?
“I drove him away from here. Told him to cool off. To think things over,” she went on, only for a pillow to fly at her.
“Are you an idiot?!” Isadora shouted.
“Who are you calling an idiot!” Sophie threw the pillow back.
“I’m calling you an idiot, idiot!” Back it came.
“So what if I am idiot?! So what?!” Sophie raised the pillow again, but her hand froze. She hugged it to her chest instead.
I am an idiot.
I really am.
What possessed me to say those things?
Was I really so afraid?
He’d spoken the very words I longed to hear—and how did I respond to him?
With hurt and pain.
The sobs came hard. The sobs came fast.
Panicked, Isadora rushed to her side and laid a hand on her back, rubbing in slow, awkward circles.
“I was afraid. Terrified,” Sophie said. “In that moment, when he said those things to me, I realized I loved him. I don’t even know when it started or how it grew so deep—but it was already there, and it scared me. All I could think was…what if the day came? What if he looked at me the way everyone else always has? And I panicked. I panicked so hard I could barely breathe.”