Dydra's blue eyes widened slightly, her thoughts stalling as his words settled over her.
Sit… with him?
Her gaze lifted slowly, almost uncertainly, until it rested on the man before her. The weight of what he had just said pressed down on her chest, making it difficult to breathe properly.
He—an elite, someone born into privilege, raised in comfort, untouched by the harshness of labor or want—was asking her to sit beside him.
Her.
A mere maid.
For a moment, she remained rooted to the spot, her body refusing to obey as her mind struggled to make sense of it. Surely she had misheard. Surely there was some mistake.
But no correction came.
No dismissal followed.
Only silence.
Leonard, meanwhile, seemed elsewhere entirely.
His thoughts drifted between the present and the past, caught in a quiet storm he did not outwardly show. His gaze lingered on Dydra's face, but what he saw was not always her.
Not fully.
Another face overlapped hers in his mind—so similar it unsettled him.
