Philo Amarus's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Philo had been standing in the same spot for twenty minutes when the door crashed open and something shattered on the floor. He didn't need to look to know it was Eris. The sound of her entrance had its own shape by now — loud, immediate, unapologetic. He turned anyway, because not looking would be worse, and found her staring straight at him with that expression that meant she already knew everything he'd been thinking. The vase at her feet was broken in three clean pieces. It was the one with the heart painted on it, the one his mother kept by the window because it made her smile. Eris didn't look down at it. She looked at him the way she always did when she was waiting for him to stop being careful. He opened his mouth and nothing came out, which should have been humiliating, but her face changed — just slightly — into something that looked almost like relief. She'd broken it on purpose. She was giving him a reason to finally say something that mattered, and they both knew it.