The silence dragged.
No one had moved to escort her out. No one yelled. No one reached for her arm or told her she shouldn't be there.
They were just watching.
And that somehow unsettled her more than if they had shouted.
She wasn't sure what she had expected—panic, shouts, someone dragging her back through the gate. Instead, they just stood there. Calm. Patient. Like they had seen this before.
Like she wasn't surprising at all.
Ariadne's eyes flicked to the now-open gate behind her. He was gone. Again.
But this time… she'd seen him.
Really seen him.
And the way he'd looked at her—
Not like a stranger.
Not like a lover.
But like someone caught between recognition and regret.
Like someone who had just seen something they never wanted to see again.
She pressed her hand to her chest. Her breath wouldn't come easy. Her legs felt weak beneath her, heavy and disconnected, it was as if her body was trying to figure out whether it was safe or not. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out everything else.
She touched her ribs where the gate had scraped her. It stung. Not badly, A solid reminder that this wasn't a dream. It was real.
It had all happened.
Footsteps broke the stillness.
She turned sharply, still on edge. Her fingers curled into the fabric of her dress, instinctive, defensive.
It was him—the one with messy curls and warm eyes that didn't match the coldness of the place. Theo.
"You alright?" he asked gently, stopping a few feet away, as if he didn't want to scare her off.
Ariadne hesitated, unsure what "alright" was supposed to feel like anymore. "I… I don't know."
He smiled faintly, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat. "Yeah. That checks out."
She followed his gaze to the mansion—the towering structure that felt more like a fortress than a home. "Who was he?"
Theo's expression didn't change much, but something in his eyes shifted. "Just a grumpy old soul. Pay him no heed."
She let out a breath, bitter at the edges. Pay him no heed.
As if she hadn't spent nights haunted by his face. As if the pull she felt toward him wasn't real. As if he hadn't looked at her like she meant something he wished she didn't.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Ariadne," she said, her voice catching.
He nodded. "I'm Theo."
She already knew. But it felt different, hearing it from him.
He seemed like he wanted to ask more—but he didn't. Maybe he wasn't sure if she was ready to answer.
Behind him, the others hadn't moved much. They stood near the steps, whispering among themselves, casting the occasional glance in her direction. She couldn't tell if they were wary, curious, or simply waiting.
Ariadne looked back toward the gate.
She didn't know what any of this meant. Why the dreams had led her here. Why he had looked at her like that.
She didn't even know if she wanted answers.
But something inside her whispered that the moment she stepped through that gate, her life had started changing.
And whatever this place was or whoever he was, she wasn't walking away from it. Not when she had finally found him.