I never wanted to be on that staircase.

Three months after Frankfurt, I sat on the terrace of a waterfront restaurant in Seattle, watching the ferry boats cut white trails across the dark slate water of Elliott Bay.

Alden sat across from me, pouring a glass of crisp Pinot Gris into my glass. He looked different than he had in California. The permanent tension in his shoulders had melted away; the hollow exhaustion around his eyes had been replaced by the quiet, grounded confidence of an artist doing work that mattered. His new architectural firm had just been awarded the municipal contract for the Seattle waterfront revitalization project.

“You’re walking without even the slightest limp,” Alden observed, his eyes tracing the clean line of my stride as I had returned from the terrace railing.

“Dr. Chen gave me full clearance last week,” I said, taking a sip of the wine. “I ran three miles on the lakefront trail on Tuesday. No pain. No swelling.”

“And your family?” Alden asked gently. He didn't ask out of morbid curiosity; he asked with the careful consideration of someone who understood how deep structural trauma ran.

“The bankruptcy auction concluded last Friday,” I said, looking out at the bay. “The suburban house in Illinois was sold to a young couple with three kids. Althia tried to file an emergency injunction to retain her fur coats and jewelry collection, claiming they were ‘heirlooms.’ The bankruptcy trustee informed her that personal luxury goods purchased within three years of a felony fraud conviction are subject to full forfeiture.”

“Where is she living?”

“A forty-foot trailer outside of Mesa, Arizona,” I said flatly. “She’s working part-time as a receptionist at a low-cost dental clinic. She spends her evenings writing letters to television producers, claiming she was the victim of a deep-state digital conspiracy to frame her family.”

Alden shook his head, a wry, sad smile touching his lips. “Some people will burn down their own house and blame the matches.”

“What about Sutton?” Alden asked.

“Vesper received the updated behavioral report from the Department of Corrections,” I replied. “Sutton lost her commissary privileges for sixty days after she was caught trying to bribe a correctional officer with a promised ‘future shout-out’ if the guard let her use a contraband smartphone to check her old follower count.”

Alden burst out laughing, a deep, genuine sound that drew smiles from the couple at the adjacent table. “She tried to pay a prison guard with an influencer shout-out?”

“She doesn't know how to exist without an audience, Alden,” I said. “To Sutton, if an event isn't being filmed, it didn't happen. Being trapped in a prison cell with no cameras, no lighting, and no comments section isn't just a punishment for her—it’s an existential void. She’s finally being forced to look at herself in an unedited mirror, and she hates what she sees.”

Alden reached across the small wooden table, his hand resting over mine. His touch was warm, reassuring, and completely steady.

“And what about you, Fallon Vance?” he asked softly. “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?”

I looked down at our hands, then out across the vast, open water toward the Olympic Mountains rising like jagged silver crowns against the twilight sky.

I thought about the girl who had worked double shifts at a diner, counting crumpled dollar bills while her father laughed in the driveway. I thought about the woman who had crawled across the cold marble of the cliffside resort, broken, humiliated, and abandoned by the people who were supposed to protect her.

And then I thought about the jet engines in Frankfurt, the courtroom victories in Chicago, and the clean, unyielding strength in my own stride.

“I see an inspector who finally evaluated the risk,” I said, smiling up at him. “And decided to fly anyway.”

Alden raised his glass, the crystal catching the dying light of the Pacific sun.

“To clear skies,” he said.

“To higher altitude,” I replied.