In a labyrinth in another realm, Sophie sat beside her fiancé's motionless body.
Her hand rested over his, just as it had every day since the descent.
She had been there the previous night when his fingers twitched.
It had lasted only a second. A movement so slight that someone else might have dismissed it as an involuntary spasm, a meaningless reaction from an unresponsive body.
Sophie hadn't dismissed it.
She had felt it.
And since then, she had barely left his side.
Tonight, she held his hand a little more tightly, her thumb moving gently across his knuckles.
She didn't know what was happening on the other side. She couldn't see the city that was slowly gathering around him, the people beginning to trust him, or the connections he was building as he climbed toward a strength that might one day bring him back.
She knew only that something had changed.
For the first time in a long while, hope felt like something more substantial than a desperate wish.
