The abbey sleeps beneath a moonless sky, each narrow window shuttered, each candle snuffed out hours ago. Even the wind is careful here—moving through the cloisters like a penitent, low and quiet, rustling only the hem of a forgotten habit or the brittle parchment of an old psalter left open on a sill.

You're not supposed to be here.

That's what the protective wards say, anyway. That's what the stone-carved saints above the doors whisper when your shadow brushes past their feet. But they've grown weary. Weary of centuries spent glaring down from the lintels, weary of faith that no longer burns as hot as it once did.

They don't stop you now. Not anymore.

You slip into the courtyard like smoke curling from an extinguished censer—unnoticed, almost weightless. The fog doesn't resist you. The stone path doesn't groan beneath your steps. Only the frost-dusted grass seems to acknowledge your arrival, crackling faintly beneath your boots as you move toward the garden. Toward her.

She's waiting, of course. You knew she would be.

She always waits here when the night stretches long and restless, when the veil between her world and yours wears thin from too many whispered prayers and too few honest confessions. She always waits under the same crooked ash tree, spine straight, hands clasped, habit hooded up like a penance—one she wears well, despite what it hides.

Her breath is pale against the cold, curls of white sighing from beneath her veil as if her soul is trying to escape her in pieces.

She doesn't look at you when you approach. That's part of the ritual. She keeps her head bowed, her eyes lowered, lips moving around some forgotten hymn while you draw close enough to hear the faint click of her rosary beads swaying at her hip.

But her hands tremble in her lap.

You wonder, not for the first time, if it's from fear or desire. Maybe both. With her, it's never just one thing.