Steven’s POV
An invitation.
Not a plea.
Dylan’s words followed me all the way back from the training field.
They walked beside me through the damp grass. They stayed with me under the trees. They settled somewhere under my ribs and refused to leave.
An invitation.
Not a rescue.
Not a claim.
Not proof that Aqua had chosen me over Orion.
Not something desperate I offered because I was afraid the world would take her if I did not hold tightly enough.
An invitation.
Something given with open hands.
Something she could refuse.
Something she could accept because she wanted to, not because I needed her to.
By the time I reached the house, my body ached from training and my shirt still clung to my back. My knuckles were scraped. My shoulder throbbed from one of Dylan’s practice strikes, and my ribs still complained from the Atlantean soldier who had knocked me into the grass the night before.
But my mind felt quieter than it had all morning.
Not calm.
Not fully.
Just less like a room full of doors slamming at once.
I stepped inside and found Aqua in the kitchen.
She stood near the counter with a cup of tea in one hand, her pale hair loose over her shoulder. The blue streaks caught the window light, soft and bright against the morning. The blue moon flowers still rested on the windowsill above the sink, their petals glowing faintly even with daylight touching them.
She looked up when I came in.
For one second, everything in my chest stopped trying to become a problem.
She was just there.
In the kitchen.
Holding tea.
Looking at me like I had come back to a place where I belonged.
“How was training?” she asked.
I leaned against the doorway and tried not to look like I had just spent half the morning confessing marriage thoughts to Dylan on a bench.
“Dylan was annoying.”
Aqua’s mouth curved.
“So it went well.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It is what you meant.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You and Dylan are getting too good at translating me.”
“I do not need Dylan’s help for that.”
“Terrifying.”
Her smile deepened, but her gaze moved over my face with the kind of gentleness that made it harder to hide things.
Not because she pushed.
Because she noticed.
“You seem different,” she said.
My hand tightened around the strap of my training bag.
“Different bad?”
“No.” She looked at me for another moment. “Different quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
Aqua stared.
I sighed. “Fine. I’m occasionally quiet.”
“Rarely.”
“That feels unfair.”
“It feels observed.”
I huffed and pushed away from the doorway, walking farther into the kitchen. The air smelled like tea and flowers and the faint sweetness of whatever Aqua had found in the cabinet earlier. I set my bag down by the wall and tried not to stare too long at her hand around the cup.
I failed.
Not enough for her to say anything.
But enough for me to know I had failed.
Her fingers were slender around the porcelain, nails clean and pale, the skin still faintly marked where water pressure and magic had strained through her hands last night. I remembered those hands raised toward Orion. Trembling, but refusing to lower.
I imagined a ring there.
My breath caught.
Aqua tilted her head.
“Steven?”
I looked up too fast. “Yeah?”
Her brows drew together slightly.
“Are you all right?”
The question was soft.
Too soft.
Too easy to fall into.
I could have told her then.
Not everything, maybe. But enough.
I could have said, I think I want to marry you, and I am terrified because I do not want to ask wrong.
But Dylan’s voice came back before mine could leave my mouth.
Make it an invitation. Not a plea.
A half-formed thought thrown across the kitchen did not feel like an invitation.
It felt like panic trying to dress itself up as honesty.
So I swallowed and gave her the truest answer I could without ruining the question before it had a shape.
“I think so.”
Aqua studied me.
She did not look convinced.
But she did not push.
Instead, she set her cup down, crossed the kitchen, and touched my wrist.
That was all.
Just her fingers against my skin.
The warmth of her hand was cooler than mine, but not cold. Never cold. More like water touched by sunlight.
“If something is troubling you,” she said, “you may tell me.”
“I know.”
“And if you are not ready to tell me, you may wait.”
My chest tightened.
That was worse somehow.
Kindness always found the places I had not defended properly.
I looked at her hand on my wrist.
“I know,” I said again, quieter this time.
Her thumb moved once over my pulse.
“Good.”
I lifted my eyes to hers.
The blue in them seemed softer this morning, but no less steady.
For a second, all I could think was:
This.
This was what I wanted.
Not only the part where she smiled at me.
Not only the part where she touched me like I was not something ruined.
This.
The way she could see worry in me and still give me room.
The way she let silence be a place to breathe instead of a punishment.
The way she did not demand the whole of me at once, but still stood close enough that I knew she was there.
I wanted tea in the kitchen.
Blue moon flowers on the windowsill.
Aqua’s cup beside mine.
Fang pretending not to listen from some shadowed corner.
Coming home from training sore and tired and finding her here.
Not because she had nowhere else to go.
Because she had chosen to stay.
Aqua’s fingers slipped from my wrist.
“You should wash before you sit on anything.”
I blinked.
Then looked down at myself.
Mud clung to my shoes. Grass stuck to one knee. Sweat had dried uncomfortably at the collar of my shirt.
“Wow.”
Her mouth twitched.
“That was practical advice.”
“You made it sound like I’m furniture’s enemy.”
“You are currently a threat to the sofa.”
I pointed at her. “The sofa loves me.”
“The sofa has no choice.”
The words hit in the strangest way.
Aqua seemed to realize it a second after I did.
Her expression softened.
I looked away before the moment could get too heavy.
“Right,” I said, clearing my throat. “Shower first. Then I’ll stop threatening the furniture.”
“That would be appreciated.”
I grabbed my bag and headed for the stairs, but I paused halfway across the room.
Aqua had gone back to the counter, one hand touching the blue moon flowers lightly as if checking that they were still real.
The petals glowed under her fingers.
Blue on blue.
Flower light against the streaks in her hair.
Something in me ached.
Carefully.
That was the word I kept coming back to.
Not recklessly.
Not desperately.
Carefully.
I did not know how to ask her yet.
But I knew I wanted to.
That night, I did not sleep right away.
Aqua had fallen asleep beside me, curled close enough that her hair brushed my shoulder. One of her hands rested near my chest, loose and open, like even in sleep she trusted the space between us.
I lay on my back with one arm behind my head and the other around her.
Careful not to hold too tightly.
That thought stayed with me.
Careful not to hold too tightly.
It sounded easy until the person beside me was the one thing in my life I was most afraid to lose.
The room was quiet except for her breathing and the faint sounds of the house settling around us. Moonlight slipped through the curtains in silver strips, touching the floor, the blanket, the edge of Aqua’s hair.
I stared at the ceiling.
I was eighteen.
I knew that.
I knew how it sounded.
A few months ago, I had been a boy on a beach who had never had a girlfriend. Now I was lying beside a mermaid princess in a hidden magical town, thinking about marriage like my heart had outrun every reasonable part of me.
It sounded insane when I put it that way.
My throat tightened.
But the thought did not leave.
It did not claw at me the way fear did.
It did not snap its teeth like hunger.
It did not roar like fire demanding air.
It stayed quiet.
Steady.
Maybe first love was supposed to make me reckless.
But this did not feel reckless.
It felt like the first thing I had ever wanted carefully.
I turned my head slightly and looked at Aqua.
Her lashes rested against her cheeks, her face peaceful in the moonlight. She had fought soldiers from Atlantis two nights ago. She had faced Orion. She had sent a message to her brother through the same people who came to collect her.
And still, here she was.
Not in a palace.
Not in a room chosen for her.
Here.
Beside me.
I did not want to marry her because Orion had come for her.
I did not want to marry her because Atlantis had chosen someone else first.
I did not want to make her mine so no one could take her.
That was the thought I was afraid of.
That was the kind of love that turned into a cage and called itself protection.
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I closed my eyes.
No.
If I asked her, it had to be because I wanted to offer something.
Not safety from every danger.
I could not promise that.
Not a perfect future.
I did not even know what my own bloodline would turn me into yet.
Not a life without fear.
I had too much of that inside me to lie to either of us.
But a real life.
Tea in the kitchen.
Training fields I came back from because she was waiting.
Blue moon flowers glowing over the sink.
A sofa that had somehow become ours.
A place where she could say no and still be loved.
A place where she could say yes and still be free.
Aqua shifted in her sleep, moving closer until her cheek brushed my shoulder. My arm curved around her by instinct, and for one second, the ache in my chest softened into something almost peaceful.
“I’m not taking this lightly,” I whispered.
She did not wake.
Maybe I was saying it to myself.
Maybe I was saying it to whatever part of me still feared wanting something meant I would ruin it.
“I know you’re my first love,” I whispered. “But that doesn’t make this small.”
The quiet held.
Aqua slept on.
My hand moved lightly over her hair.
I thought about Dylan’s question.
Where is this coming from?
The answer was not a battlefield.
Not Orion.
Not Atlantis.
It was this.
The ordinary things that did not feel ordinary because I had never truly had them.
Aqua’s cup beside mine.
Her voice in the kitchen.
Her hand finding mine without hesitation.
The way she had stood in front of Orion and chosen herself.
The way she still came back to me afterward.
If I was going to ask her to marry me, I needed more than courage.
I needed a ring.
Not just any ring.
Something that felt like her.
At first, the answer in my head was embarrassingly simple.
Blue.
Her name was Aqua.
She was a mermaid.
She had blue in her hair.
Her eyes caught light like water.
Not my most poetic thought.
Probably not one I should say to Dylan first.
But the longer I lay there, the more the color changed inside my mind.
Not royal blue.
Not throne-room blue.
Not the deep, heavy blue of Atlantis halls and duty and old banners hanging over decisions Aqua never got to make.
Her blue.
The pale-blue streaks in her hair the first time I saw her on the beach.
The impossible color of her eyes when she looked at the human world like it was frightening and beautiful at the same time.
The blue moon flowers glowing between her fingers.
The lake rising behind her because it knew her and still let her choose.
A drop of water caught in light.
Aquamarine.
The word settled.
A teardrop shape.
Not because she was sad.
Because water did not need to be a crown to be beautiful.
Because the sea had brought her to me, but it did not own her.
Because the first time I saw her, she looked like something the tide had carried out of a dream and left standing barefoot on shore.
I looked down at her hand again.
Empty.
Soft.
Hers.
My chest tightened.
Aquamarine.
Teardrop.
Silver, maybe.
Something simple enough that she could wear it without feeling weighed down. Something elegant, but not ceremonial. Not a ring Atlantis would have chosen for Princess Aqua.
A ring I would choose for Aqua.
The girl who made tea in my kitchen.
The girl who pushed my shoulder when I called her princess too smugly.
The girl who stood beside me and still belonged to herself.
I breathed out slowly.
The thought had a shape now.
That made it more terrifying.
And more real.
---
The next afternoon, I found Dylan in the training field.
The field was empty except for him.
No students.
No guards.
No Fredrick watching from a polite distance.
Just Dylan sitting on the bench near the fence, one ankle crossed over the other, a wooden practice staff resting across his knees. He had a small knife in one hand and was shaving a splintered edge down with careful, exact movements.
The training field had a strange kind of quiet to it when no one was fighting.
Not normal quiet.
Worthington quiet.
The kind that pressed close around the borders, like the field itself was listening but no one outside could. Dylan had once mentioned the sound wards only broke if someone stepped into the grounds.
At the time, I thought that was excessive.
Now, walking toward him with the word ring burning a hole through my chest, I appreciated it.
Dylan did not look up.
“I heard you before you reached the gate.”
“Comforting.”
“It was not meant to be.”
I stopped a few feet away from the bench.
“I need your help.”
Dylan turned the staff once and kept shaving the rough edge.
“That sentence has never led anywhere simple.”
“I’m aware.”
“Good. Awareness is progress.”
He finally looked up.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“That is rarely true.”
“Fine. Nothing exploded, attacked, or crawled out of a lake.”
His brow lifted.
“A low bar.”
“It’s been a strange week.”
“That is also a low bar.”
I shifted my weight.
Dylan’s eyes dropped to my feet.
“Sit down before you pace a trench into the grass.”
“I wasn’t pacing.”
“You were preparing to.”
“How do you prepare to pace?”
“By standing like that.”
I looked down at myself.
Then sat.
The bench creaked faintly under my weight. My fingers tapped once against my knee before I forced them still.
Dylan noticed.
Because Dylan’s entire personality was noticing things and making them my problem.
“What do you need?” he asked.
I looked toward the empty field.
Then back at him.
“A ring.”
The knife stopped.
The air inside the warded field seemed to still with it.
Dylan did not look shocked.
Not exactly.
But his attention sharpened so quickly I felt it like a hand closing around the moment.
“Yesterday you said you wanted to marry her,” he said. “Today you want a ring.”
“I know.”
“That was not a defense.”
“I know that too.”
He set the staff and knife aside.
That somehow made me more nervous.
“Steven.”
“I thought about it.”
“For one night.”
“For more than one night,” I said, then paused. “Just not clearly until now.”
Dylan’s expression stayed unreadable.
So I kept going.
“I know it looks fast. I know that. I know I’m young. I know this is my first love. I know Aqua deserves more than me reacting to one bad night and calling it commitment.”
He stayed quiet.
“But I’m not asking you to help me because I panicked. I’m asking because I want to do this properly. Because if I’m going to ask her, I need to prepare. I need to think about the ring and the words and the place. I need it to feel like something offered, not something thrown at her because I got scared.”
Dylan watched me for a long moment.
I forced myself not to fill the silence.
Eventually, he gave one slow nod.
“Good.”
I blinked. “That’s it?”
“For that part.”
“There are parts?”
“There are always parts.”
I groaned.
Dylan leaned back slightly, one arm resting along the back of the bench.
“What does Aqua like?”
“Blue,” I said.
The silence that followed felt personal.
Dylan stared at me.
I stared back.
“That was the short answer.”
“It was the answer of someone choosing curtains.”
“I said it was short.”
“Try the answer that suggests you know the woman you intend to marry.”
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“I know her.”
“Then answer better.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.
“She likes tea,” I said. “Quiet when the quiet is safe. Flowers she has never seen before. Being asked instead of ordered.”
Dylan’s expression shifted slightly.
“That last one will be difficult to put in a ring.”
“I know.” I looked down at my hands. “But it matters.”
“Then keep going.”
I swallowed.
“She likes feeling like she can choose. She likes learning normal things even when she pretends she isn’t curious. She likes when Fang acts like he doesn’t want attention and then doesn’t move away when she gives it to him.”
Dylan’s mouth twitched.
“She likes the lake,” I continued, “but not when it feels like Atlantis is reaching through it. She likes Worthington because no one here knows what to do with her title half the time. She likes that.”
“She does.”
“And blue,” I added.
Dylan gave me a look.
I raised both hands. “I’m getting there.”
“Please do.”
My hands dropped again.
The next part felt worse to say out loud.
Not bad worse.
Just exposed.
Thinking it alone in the dark with Aqua asleep beside me had been one thing. Sitting on a training-field bench, talking to Dylan while a half-shaved practice staff rested beside him, trying to explain why one specific blue stone felt like the girl I wanted to marry was something else entirely.
“I want aquamarine,” I said.
Dylan’s brow lifted.
“Because her name is Aqua?”
“Partly.”
“Subtle.”
“I’m allowed to be obvious once.”
“Once seems generous.”
“Dylan.”
He lifted one hand. “Continue.”
I looked down at my hands.
“It’s not just her name,” I said. “It’s… her.”
Dylan did not interrupt.
That somehow made it harder.
I rubbed the back of my neck and forced myself to keep going.
“The first time I saw her, she came out of the water on the beach. Her hair was pale, but there were these blue streaks in it, and her eyes were…” I stopped.
Dylan stared.
I cleared my throat. “Blue.”
“Remarkable detail.”
“Shut up. I’m trying.”
“I can tell.”
That should have annoyed me.
It almost helped.
I leaned forward again, elbows on my knees.
“They were bright, okay? Not normal bright. Like water when the sun hits it and you can’t tell if it’s blue or silver or something else. And then the blue moon flowers—when she held them, they just looked like they belonged with her.”
My face warmed.
I hated that.
Not because I was ashamed.
Because saying it to Dylan made it sound like I had spent hours thinking about the exact shade of Aqua’s eyes and flowers and hair.
Which I had.
Apparently.
“I know it sounds like a lot,” I muttered.
Dylan was quiet.
Too quiet.
I looked at him. “What?”
His gaze stayed on mine, sharp but not unkind.
“You really thought this out.”
My face burned hotter.
“I did research before coming here.”
“Research.”
“Not in a creepy way.”
“I did not say creepy.”
“You looked like you were considering it.”
“I was considering several things.”
“That’s worse.”
The corner of Dylan’s mouth moved.
Barely.
“Not all of them were bad.”
I looked away, dragging one hand through my hair.
“I just want it to be right,” I admitted. “Not expensive-right. Not impressive-right. Just… Aqua-right.”
The words sounded ridiculous the second they left my mouth.
I groaned. “That sounded stupid.”
“No,” Dylan said.
I glanced at him.
He looked toward the field for a moment, then back at me.
“It sounded like you know what you are trying to give her.”
Something in my chest tightened.
I swallowed.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I think I do.”
Dylan sat with that for a moment.
Then he asked, “What shape?”
“Teardrop.”
His eyes stayed on my face.
I forced myself not to look away this time.
“Not because she’s sad or anything like that,” I said quickly. “I just… it looks like water. A drop of it. Something small and clear and still.”
“Set in silver?”
“I think so. Silver or white gold. Something light. Not too big.”
“Practical?”
“I want her to be able to wear it.”
“That is helpful.”
“Maybe the band could curve around the stone.” I tried to shape it with my hands and immediately felt ridiculous again. “Like water. But not trapping it. Holding it.”
Dylan’s eyes flicked to my hands.
Then back to my face.
“That,” he said, “is a better answer than blue.”
“I got there eventually.”
“With supervision.”
“Barely.”
“With heavy supervision.”
I let out a breath I did not realize I had been holding.
For the first time since I had said the word ring, I could picture it.
A pale-blue stone shaped like a drop of water, held in silver like moonlight curling around it.
Aqua’s hand.
The ring there.
My stomach twisted hard enough that I pressed one palm against it.
Dylan noticed.
“You are allowed to be nervous,” he said.
“That sounded almost kind.”
“Do not spread rumors.”
I looked at him.
He looked away first.
Just for a second.
Something crossed his face.
Not disapproval.
Not judgment.
Something quieter.
Almost warm.
Almost sad.
Like he was happy for me and remembering something that did not belong to this conversation at the same time.
A few weeks ago, I might have missed it.
I did not miss it now.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“It was not relevant.”
“That means it was something.”
Dylan gave me a flat look. “Do you want help with the ring, or do you want to continue your recent hobby of interrogating my face?”
“I can multitask.”
“No.”
I studied him for another second, but his expression had already closed back into calm.
Whatever it was, he was not giving it to me.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
So I let it go.
For now.
“Can someone in Worthington make it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“That fast?”
Dylan looked almost insulted. “This is Worthington.”
“That answered nothing and somehow explained everything.”
“It often does.”
I rubbed my palms down my pants.
“How much will it cost?”
Dylan looked at me.
“I’ll handle it.”
“No.”
His brow lifted. “That was fast.”
“You’re already helping me with the proposal.”
“I am aware.”
“I’m not letting you buy the ring too.”
“It would not be my father’s money,” Dylan said. “It would be mine.”
That stopped me for half a second.
He looked away, almost annoyed by his own honesty.
“Consider it a gift. To you and Aqua.”
My throat tightened.
“Dylan…”
“Do not make it sentimental.”
“You literally just offered to buy my engagement ring.”
“I offered to help my friend.”
The word landed between us before either of us could move around it.
Friend.
Dylan’s jaw tightened slightly, like he had not meant to say it that plainly.
I stared at him.
“Oh,” I said. “So we’re using the friend word now?”
His eyes narrowed.
“It is an early wedding gift. Do not push it.”
I smiled before I could stop myself.
“Too late.”
“Steven.”
“I’m just saying, I heard it.”
“And I am already regretting it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am reconsidering the gift.”
I lifted both hands. “Friendship accepted quietly.”
“That was not quiet.”
“It was quiet for me.”
Dylan closed his eyes for half a second.
That made it better.
“I’ll pay you back,” I said.
“No.”
“Dylan.”
“Let me be decent for one day.”
“You are decent most days.”
His eyes opened.
“Do not start rumors.”
The smile on my face softened before I could stop it.
He saw that too.
Naturally.
So he stood before I could say anything else.
“There is a jeweler near the eastern side of town,” he said. “Arcanum work, mostly. Quiet. Reliable. My family uses him when pieces need to be discreet.”
“Discreet is good.”
“Yes. Since I assume Aqua is not supposed to know before you ask.”
“That is usually how proposals work.”
“With you, I prefer to confirm.”
“Rude.”
“Necessary.”
---
We left the training field by the outer path, the one that curved away from the back of the house and slipped between the trees toward town.
The sound wards loosened around us as we passed the field’s boundary. The thick, private quiet broke into birdsong, distant voices, and the soft rush of Worthington moving through the afternoon.
My pulse picked up with every step toward town.
The ring had been a thought.
Then a shape.
Now it was becoming something that could exist outside my head.
That was worse.
Better.
Both.
Dylan walked beside me with his hands in his pockets, calm in a way that made me want to shake him.
“Stop doing that,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Looking like you are about to challenge your own fingers to a fight.”
I looked down.
My hands were flexing at my sides.
I shoved them into my pockets.
“Better?”
“No. Now you look guilty.”
“I am guilty. Of nerves.”
“That is not a crime.”
“Feels like one.”
“It is not.”
Worthington looked different when I walked through it with a secret.
People moved through the town as usual. A woman watered hanging plants outside a bakery. Two children chased each other near a fountain, their laughter bright in the afternoon air. A man with green-glowing spectacles repaired a streetlamp while muttering at it like the lamp had personally disappointed him.
Everything looked normal.
Magically normal.
But normal.
And I was walking through it to choose a ring for Aqua.
The jeweler’s shop sat on the eastern side of town, tucked between a bookstore and a narrow apothecary with purple flowers hanging over the door. The sign above the jeweler’s window was small and polished, etched with curling green lines that shifted slightly when I looked at them.
Inside, the shop smelled faintly of metal, old wood, and something sharp like lightning after rain.
Glass cases lined the walls, holding rings, pendants, cuffs, and delicate chains set with stones that caught light in ways normal stones probably did not. Some glowed. Some shimmered. One looked like it had a tiny storm trapped inside it.
I tried not to stare.
Failed.
Dylan saw.
“Do not touch anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You thought about it.”
“Briefly.”
A man emerged from the back room, older than Fredrick by maybe ten years, with silver-streaked hair tied at the nape of his neck and narrow spectacles perched low on his nose. His eyes moved to Dylan first, then to me.
“Lord Dylan,” he said.
I looked at Dylan.
Dylan looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
“Mr. Vale,” he said.
I had learned quickly that nearly everyone in Worthington seemed to have Worth somewhere in their name. Last names did very little around here. Mr. Vale was apparently Vale Worth, but everyone called him Mr. Vale because using Worth narrowed down absolutely nothing.
Lord Dylan, though.
I was saving that.
Possibly forever.
Mr. Vale’s gaze sharpened on me for half a second, curious but polite.
“How may I help you?”
Dylan stepped slightly aside.
I looked at him.
Traitor.
His expression did not change.
But I understood.
He could arrange the shop. He could speak to the jeweler. He could pay, apparently, because he had decided to become aggressively generous at the worst possible time.
But he could not choose the ring for me.
It was my question.
My ring to give.
My words to find.
So I forced myself to look at Mr. Vale.
“I need a ring.”
Mr. Vale did not smile.
Somehow, I appreciated that.
“What sort of ring?”
I glanced at Dylan.
Dylan gave me no help whatsoever.
Right.
My ring.
My question.
“An engagement ring,” I said.
Mr. Vale’s expression warmed by a fraction.
“For?”
“Someone who likes water,” I said, then winced internally. “That sounded bad. I mean—she’s Waters. But I don’t want it to look like court jewelry. Not heavy. Not royal.”
Mr. Vale listened without interrupting.
That helped.
I took a breath.
“Aquamarine. Teardrop cut. Silver band. Something delicate enough to wear every day, but not weak. The band maybe curves around the stone like water, but not like it’s trapping it.”
Mr. Vale’s eyes lifted from the notes he had begun making.
Dylan said nothing.
I kept going because stopping felt impossible now.
“She is strong,” I said. “But I don’t want a ring that only says power. Everyone around her already sees a title before they see her. I want something that feels like… like the part of her that smiles at flowers she’s never seen before. The part that chose a life outside what everyone expected.”
The shop went very quiet.
My face burned.
“That was too much,” I muttered.
Mr. Vale’s expression softened.
“No,” he said. “That was useful.”
I glanced at Dylan.
The corner of his mouth moved.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
“You were emotionally making fun of me.”
“That is not a legal category.”
Mr. Vale coughed once, suspiciously close to a laugh, then turned a page in his notebook.
“Aquamarine,” he said. “Teardrop cut. Pale or deeper blue?”
I hesitated.
Then I remembered Aqua in the kitchen. The flowers. The first day on the beach. Her hair in morning light.
“Pale,” I said. “Clear. Like water when light hits it.”
Mr. Vale nodded.
“Band?”
“Silver,” I said. “I think silver.”
Dylan’s gaze flicked toward me.
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It was relevant this time.”
“Silver suits the stone,” he said.
“Then yes. Silver.”
Mr. Vale wrote it down.
“I can craft the setting by tomorrow evening if the stone I have in mind responds well to the work. The final setting may need one additional day depending on the band’s curve.”
My heart jumped.
“That fast?”
Mr. Vale looked at me over his spectacles.
“This is Worthington.”
Dylan’s mouth twitched.
I chose not to respond to either of them.
Mr. Vale led us to a back counter and brought out a small tray lined with dark blue velvet. Three aquamarines rested on it, each one catching the light differently.
The first was too deep. Beautiful, but too formal.
The second was almost clear.
The third made my breath stop.
Pale blue.
Soft.
A teardrop of water held still.
Light moved through it without getting trapped.
I touched the edge of the tray, not the stone.
“That one.”
Dylan leaned closer.
Mr. Vale nodded as if he had expected it.
“A fine choice.”
I swallowed.
“It looks like her.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
No one teased me.
For once.
Mr. Vale carefully lifted the stone with a small tool, turning it beneath the light.
“I will make the band curve gently here,” he said, pointing without touching. “Two lines of silver rising along the sides, holding the stone open at the top. Like a wave forming around it.”
Holding without trapping.
My chest tightened.
“Yes,” I said. “That.”
Dylan looked at me then.
Really looked.
Something quiet passed through his eyes again. Almost sad, almost proud, hidden before I could name it.
This time, I did not ask.
The moment belonged to the ring.
To Aqua.
To the question taking shape in front of me.
Mr. Vale discussed measurements next, which was a nightmare because I did not exactly know Aqua’s ring size.
Dylan, annoyingly prepared for everything, suggested a subtle Arcanum resizing charm worked into the band.
“It will adjust within reason,” he said.
“Within reason?” I asked.
Mr. Vale smiled faintly. “Unless the princess transforms her entire hand into a fin, it will hold.”
I stared at him.
Dylan looked at the ceiling.
“Please do not ask him if that is possible,” Dylan said.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“Briefly.”
Mr. Vale definitely smiled that time.
By the time we left the shop, the afternoon light had shifted warmer across Worthington’s streets. The ring was not finished yet, but the stone had been chosen. The setting had been decided. Mr. Vale had promised discretion and speed.
My hands felt empty.
My chest did not.
Dylan walked beside me in silence for a while.
I made it almost a full minute before breaking.
“Lord Dylan?”
“No.”
“I just said your name.”
“No.”
“I think it has a nice sound.”
“It does not.”
“Lord Dylan.”
“Steven.”
“What?”
“Do you want me to help you survive the proposal?”
I pressed my lips together.
The title died with dignity.
Mostly.
“Yes.”
“Then be wise.”
“That feels like a threat.”
“It is motivation.”
We walked past the fountain, the water flashing pale in the late light. For a second, the aquamarine stone appeared in my mind again. Small. Blue. Waiting.
I rubbed my thumb against the side of my finger.
Dylan noticed but said nothing this time.
Maybe he understood.
Maybe he was letting me have the silence.
When we reached the split in the path, Dylan stopped.
“I will collect it when it is ready,” he said. “If you come to the shop three times before then, you will make yourself suspicious.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Dylan looked at me.
“I was going to think about it.”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
He nodded once.
Then he started toward the Worth house.
“Dylan,” I called.
He paused.
I swallowed around the sudden tightness in my throat.
“Thanks.”
His shoulders shifted.
Not quite a sigh.
Not quite anything.
“You have not proposed yet,” he said. “Thank me if she says yes.”
“And if she says no?”
He looked back then.
His expression was steady.
“If she says no, you thank me for helping you ask in a way that lets her answer honestly.”
That hit deeper than I expected.
I nodded.
“Right.”
Dylan held my gaze for one more second.
Then he turned and walked away.
I stood there for a while after he left, the path quiet around me.
The ring did not exist yet.
Not fully.
But the shape of it had started.
Aquamarine.
Teardrop.
Silver like moonlight around water.
A question, waiting to become real.
I looked toward the house where Aqua was waiting, where blue moon flowers glowed on the kitchen windowsill, where a life I had never expected was slowly becoming something I could reach for without grabbing.
An invitation.
Not a plea.
I breathed in.
Then I went home.