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I settle back against his chest. His arm comes around me. The lamp burns low and gold, and outside his window the March night holds steady, and neither of us moves to fix that for a long, long time.

I get maybe four hours of sleep before I have to sneak out to make it back to the Sailmaker in time to shower and dress for court.

Well — not court. The seminar room. But I dress like it’s court, because that’s a Margo thing, and today of all days I want the armor.

The corkboard watches me get ready. Ethics project deadline, upper right, red marker, underlined, the last time it’s going to matter. I put on the camel coat. The silk blouse. The good lipstick.

I look at myself in the mirror.

I don’t look tired. I look like a woman who spent her boyfriend’s birthday night exactly the way she wanted to. Who’s now going to go defend a story about secrets and courage in front of fourteen strangers — one of whom already knows every single thing there is to know about her.

I smile at my reflection. It’s not a performance.

Theo is in the hallway when I arrive. Same wall, same spot, dark jeans, and the Henley he wears when he’s trying to look like he didn’t try.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I’m exactly on time. You’re just early because you can’t sleep past six even when you should.”

“I slept fine.” A beat. “Eventually.”

I feel the heat climb my neck. He took me three times and worked my body well into the early hours of this morning. “Behave. We’re about to be very serious academics.”

“I’m always serious.” He looks at me. Something warm behind the deadpan. “You look good for four hours of sleep.”

“I look excellent for four hours of sleep.”

“There it is,” he teases. Something in my chest warms.

Dr. Adler opens the door before either of us can say anything else, her expression the specific one that means she is one second from starting without us. “In,” she says.

The seminar room at nine-fifteen. Same fourteen people, same long table, the March light doing something almost springlike through the windows. Theo takes his seat diagonal to mine — a habit now, not an assignment — and I settle in and open my folder and feel, for the first time in six weeks, completely unafraid of what’s about to happen.

Dr. Adler calls the room to order. She says what she always says. Honesty over performance. She always pushes.

Theo stands first. He walks the room through the build the way he did the first time — the node structure, the two paths, the dilemma at the center — except this time I’m not watching the room discover him. I’m watching the room enjoy him, which is a different and better thing. The guy in the beanie leans forward. Dr. Adler makes her notes.

“The test,” Theo says, tapping the board, “is whether you can walk through either door and believe the story took you seriously.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it. He doesn’t need to. I already know.

He sits. I stand.

I give the defense clean. Structure, argument, the choice architecture — I could do this in my sleep, and some part of me is doing exactly that, because the part of my brain that used to be terrified of this exact moment has gone quiet. I’m not defending a secret anymore. I’m narrating one that’s already over.

Dr. Adler raises her hand at the same point she always does.

“The defender has made a clean structural argument,” she says, in the voice she uses right before she takes the clean thing apart. “But I want to push on the premise, same as before. Does the defender believe the secret-keeper made the right call? Or is she arguing for the fairness of a choice she wouldn’t make herself?”

The room is quiet. I feel Theo not looking at me, the way he does when he’s giving me room.

I could give the same answer I gave six weeks ago. It was a good answer. Dr. Adler said so herself.

I give her a better one.

“I think the secret-keeper made the choice they were capable of making at the time,” I say. “Not the bravest choice. Maybe not the right one. But an honest one.” A pause, and this time there’s no catch in it, no fear underneath the words. “And I think the story does something careful — it separates wrong from not ready. The secret-keeper isn’t wrong to be scared. Fear is real. What the story asks is whether the fear runs out eventually. Whether there’s a point where the keeping costs more than the saying would.”

I let that sit. I look at Dr. Adler, not at Theo, though I can feel exactly where he is in the room the way I always can now.

“The defense isn’t that the choice was correct,” I say. “The defense is that it was human. You can’t argue someone was wrong for being scared.” A small breath. Almost a smile. “You can only argue about what they do when the fear runs out.”