Juno's house was quiet in the way old houses are - the kind of quiet that still carried faint echoes of life. The air held the scent of dried lavender and wood polish, softened by the faint trace of last night's tea still steeped in the kitchen. Light pushed through the curtains in fractured lines, laying stripes of pale gold across the worn rug and the books stacked unevenly on the coffee table. It was a safe space, one that seemed to breathe patience, with walls painted in warm hues and corners softened by plants that trailed lazily toward the ground. Nothing here demanded perfection. Nothing judged. For Zali, the room felt both foreign and familiar - too gentle for the weight she carried, yet steady enough to catch it when she finally let it slip. The silence between her and Juno wasn't empty; it was alive, filled with the unsaid, the unhealed, and the possibility of being seen without disguise.