The turning point came during the Midsummer Festival. The village square was a riot of fiddle music and spinning skirts. Elara stood on the periphery, clutching a cup of cider, feeling the familiar urge to retreat into the dark.

"I don't think of you as an uncle," she said, her voice steady for the first time.

He brought her rare seeds from the trade market. She, in her quiet way, left jars of honey and dried lavender on his porch. Their conversations were short, punctuated by long, comfortable silences. For Elara, talking to Julian didn't feel like the performance she had to put on for the rest of the world. He didn't demand she be louder or bolder; he simply met her where she was.

The sun always seemed to linger a little longer over Oakhaven, a village so tucked away in the valley that the morning mist didn’t fully clear until noon. It was a place of quiet rhythms—the rhythmic thwack of a wood axe, the low lowing of cattle, and the soft, hurried footsteps of Elara.