During the mid-symposium coffee break, I lingered near the refreshment table, deliberately turning my back to the room as I poured a cup of tea. I could feel his approach before I heard him—the air tightening, the way it does before a storm.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I shouldn't have checked it. I knew I shouldn't have checked it. But some habits—especially habits involving Apple—were impossible to break.
Apple: STATUS REPORT. How's the H2O convention? Have you made eye contact? Did he spontaneously combust? Should I warm up the rolling pin?
I typed back quickly, one eye on the room behind me.
Me: Coffee break. Haven't seen him yet. Calm down.
Apple: CALM DOWN. CALM DOWN. You're at an event hosted by a man who gave you emotional whiplash and you want me to be CALM. I'm practically vibrating with concern. The rolling pin is on the kitchen counter. It's watching me. I'm watching it. We're in this together.
Me: Please don't name the rolling pin.
Apple: Too late. Her name is Jessica. She's ready. We're both ready. We have a signal system now. One buzz means "I'm fine." Two buzzes means "he's being a scumbag." Three buzzes means "call the police and also bring Jessica because someone's about to get rolled."
Me: That's... very organized.
Apple: I'm a planner, G. It's what I do. Now go. Stare at him hard and down. Make him uncomfortable. Assert dominance. TEXT ME UPDATES.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket just as the air behind me shifted—that familiar, electric charge that preceded his presence.
"That was an interesting intervention."
His voice was close, just behind my shoulder. I turned slowly, feigning mild surprise.
"Mr. Vance," I said, with a polite, professional nod. "I hope it wasn't an overstep. It's just an area of personal academic interest."
"Is it?" He studied me, his dark eyes probing with an intensity that made my skin prickle. The coldness from the park was still there, but it was now layered with something else—a sharp, intellectual curiosity that I recognized from a hundred past lives. This was the part of him that had always been drawn to puzzles, to mysteries, to things that didn't quite fit. "The intersection of myth and science. It's an unconventional focus for a graduate student."
"The most interesting truths often are," I replied, taking a sip of my tea. "Your company's work seems to touch on that, doesn't it? 'Forgotten biological paradigms.' It sounds like you're looking for answers in the same place the ancients did."
A muscle in his jaw twitched. I had struck a nerve. He was thrown—I was not behaving as he expected. I was not the frantic stalker from the park or the lovelorn girl from the coffee shop. I was a colleague, an intellectual adversary, someone who could meet him on his own ground.
"We use scientific rigor," he said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice. "Not fairy tales."
"Rigor is the method," I agreed. "But inspiration can come from anywhere. Even from a story about a king who guarded the balance of nature."
I said it softly, watching him closely. There it was again—that flicker in his eyes, a brief, internal wince, as if I had struck a nerve he didn't know he had.
He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a low murmur meant for my ears only. "Who are you, really? What is this? Some kind of elaborate pitch? Are you with a rival company? A journalist?"
"I'm a student," I said, meeting his gaze squarely. "My name is Giana. And I told you before—you remind me of someone. A story I once knew." I decided to push, just a little. "The king in the story... he had your eyes. Your face. The same way of holding himself. As if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Fìor-uailleil, nach leigeadh air fhaicinn-strì. - Too proud to let anyone see him strain, even when his heart was breaking."
The old language fell from my lips like a prayer, ancient and musical, and I watched its effect on him with something close to wonder.
Kaelen Vance went very still.
The noise of the coffee break—the clink of cups, the murmur of conversation, the shuffle of feet—faded into a distant hum. For a long moment, he just stared at me, and I saw a war raging behind his eyes. Confusion. Suspicion. And that damned, tantalizing spark of recognition—not of me, perhaps, but of the language. Of the rhythm and cadence of words that should have meant nothing to him but clearly meant something profound.
"I don't have time for stories," he finally said, but the words lacked their previous conviction. They were rote, automatic, a defense mechanism kicking in when the mind couldn't process what the soul already knew.
"Tha thìde aig cách air son na sgeulachdan a rinn iad," I whispered. "Everyone has time for the stories that made them."
An aide appeared at his elbow then, murmuring about a call he needed to take. He held my gaze for a second longer—a silent, charged acknowledgment that the battle lines had been redrawn—then turned and walked away without another word.
I didn't try to stop him. I didn't need to.
I had planted a seed. I had spoken the old language in this new world, and he had heard it. He was shaken, intrigued, and off-balance. The flawless, impenetrable facade of Kaelen Vance had developed its first crack.
And as I stood there, the taste of tea on my tongue and the phantom scent of frost and cedar in the air, I knew that the real work was just beginning.