Chapter 91: Spring Stirred on Mist Mountain

Halfway up the slope, an ancient tower stood in quiet vigil, its layered eaves locked in mist. Sometimes the tacit understanding between adults needed only a glance, only a heartbeat, for everything to be understood without a word. Moonlight pooled like water, sliding over the window lattice, sketching the two entwined figures in a soft, hazy glow. The night lay empty over the mountain. Wind sifted through sparse bamboo-then, all at once, interwoven breaths cut the stillness. Margo Hammond had...