Three weeks had passed.
The house stood silent, blackened and abandoned. The police had called it "a structural collapse due to outdated wiring." No one asked about the melted mirror frame or the sigils etched into the walls. No one wanted to know.
Clara sat by the lake now, her bare feet in the water, her eyes staring past the surface. Emmanuel was beside her, but neither spoke much anymore. Grief sat between them, heavy like smoke.
"She saved us," Clara said softly, voice barely above the breeze.
Emmanuel nodded. "She saved me… even after everything."
Clara turned to him then. "Do you think it was ever really her? That night?"
He looked up at the sky, like it might hold answers. "I think… it was her in pieces. Fighting something inside her every second."
Silence again. Until Clara spoke:
"I dreamed about her. She was standing at the edge of my bed. Crying. She said it's not over."
Emmanuel flinched.
"I dreamed the same thing."
They stared at each other.
No one moved.
The wind picked up. The surface of the lake rippled violently for a moment just once and then it was calm again.
Clara reached for his hand, and this time, Emmanuel didn't pull away. His fingers laced through hers slowly, thoughtfully. Not out of guilt. Not out of pity.
But something beginning.
"She would have wanted this," Clara said.
"I know."
They sat together, the lake swallowing the last light of the day.
But beneath the surface unseen, untouched something moved.
Something still followed.
And it remembered their names.