That same night, Arabella stared at the bottle filled with liquid, and within it, a small, curled creature. She had fetched the bottle from Morpheus's office. Not as a gift from him, no, but simply because she had asked what it was.
Morpheus had been kind to her, painfully kind. His voice was always soft, his smile warm, his words drenched in gentleness as if she were the most fragile treasure in his possession.
And yet none of it could move her heart. There was a hollowness in her chest, a sense of watching a play she did not belong to, forced to mimic emotions she could not truly feel.
Still, guilt lingered. She wasn't someone who couldn't feel guilt after all.
Guilt toward Morpheus, who had shown her nothing but affection, and yet whose touch and gaze filled her with an unease she could not explain.
