Jon
The book had pictures of animals.
Jon sat propped against pillows in his bed, stronger now than he'd been a week ago, watching Mei Ling flip through pages with the enthusiasm of someone sharing a great secret. Sunlight streamed through the window, painting warm squares on the wooden floor. Outside, he could hear the distant sounds of soldiers drilling—the clash of practice swords, the bark of commands. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
He was learning to trust safe sounds.
"This one," Mei Ling said, pointing to a picture of a horse. "What do you call it?"
Jon studied the illustration—a graceful creature with a flowing mane, rendered in the Yi Tish style with careful brushstrokes. His mind supplied the word automatically, drawn from Marcus's knowledge of the classical language.
"Mǎ," he said. "A noble steed of ancient lineage."
Mei Ling stared at him. Then she burst out laughing.
Jon felt heat creep up his neck. "What? What did I say?"
"You—" She had to stop, pressing a hand to her mouth. "You said the horse was a 'noble steed of ancient lineage.' It's a horse. Just a horse."
"I said mǎ. That means horse."
"The word is right. Everything else is—" She dissolved into giggles again. "You talk like my great-grandmother's ghost! Like the actors in old plays, all formal and stuffy."
Jon didn't know what to do with that. Marcus's knowledge of Yi Tish had come from classical texts, from poetry and history written centuries ago. He'd never considered that languages might change, that the words he'd inherited might mark him as strange.
"I don't know how else to talk," he admitted.
Mei Ling's laughter softened into something gentler. "I'll teach you. Here—say this: 'The fish is fresh.'"
Jon repeated the phrase carefully, trying to match her cadence.
She winced. "No. You just said 'The fish is ancient and scholarly.' Like it went to university."
"Fish can't go to university."
"I know. That's the problem."
They tried again. And again. Jon found himself adjusting his inflection, trying to match the way Mei Ling spoke rather than the way Marcus's memories insisted was proper. It was harder than he'd expected—like trying to write with his wrong hand—but slowly, the words began to feel less foreign in his mouth.
"Better!" Mei Ling clapped when he finally said 'fresh fish' without making it sound like a philosophical treatise. "Now say 'Good morning.'"
By the time the sun had climbed to its peak, Jon's head ached from the effort, but he'd learned a dozen modern phrases. More importantly, he'd learned something about Mei Ling.
She filled silences.
Not randomly, not meaninglessly—but deliberately, as if silence itself was an enemy to be defeated. She talked about the fortress, about her horse, about the time she'd tried to steal honey cakes from the kitchen and been caught by Cook Lian. She talked about the view from the eastern tower and the way the fog rolled in from the sea on certain mornings and the particular shade of green the Jade Sea turned when storms were coming.
She talked because she was lonely, Jon realized. In a fortress full of soldiers who bowed to her father's name and servants who'd known her since infancy, she was still somehow alone. Her mother was dead. Her father was distant. Master Zhi was kind but old.
She had no one her own age. No one to share secrets with. No one to sit with in comfortable silence—or uncomfortable chatter, as the case might be.
I know that feeling, Jon thought. I know it very well.
"Teach me something," Mei Ling said suddenly.
"What?"
"A word. In your language. The Common Tongue."
Jon considered. What word would mean something? What word could he give her that wouldn't cost too much?
"Snow," he said finally. "It means... frozen water. That falls from the sky."
"Suh-noh," she tried, mangling the vowels adorably. "What does it look like?"
"White. Cold. Beautiful, sometimes. In the North, it covers everything in winter. The trees, the ground, the rooftops. The whole world turns white."
"Like your hair?"
Jon touched his hair reflexively. It had turned white on the Jade Serpent, though he didn't know exactly when. Stress, Master Zhi had said. Trauma. The body manifesting what the mind couldn't process.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Like my hair."
"Then I'll remember. Snow." She smiled. "That's a good word."
The small kindnesses accumulated like snow itself—layer upon layer, so gradual you barely noticed until suddenly the world looked different.
Mei Ling brought him food from the kitchen. Not the bland invalid's fare the servants provided, but real food—dumplings stuffed with pork and ginger, sweet rice cakes drizzled with honey, fruits he'd never seen before with names he couldn't pronounce.
"Father gets the best portions," she explained, setting a covered dish on his bedside table. "He never finishes them. I'm just making sure they don't go to waste."
Jon suspected General Kai noticed the missing portions. He also suspected the general said nothing, which was its own kind of kindness—one step removed, like sunlight filtered through clouds.
She read to him in the evenings. Adventure stories, mostly, about Yi Tish heroes who fought monsters and saved kingdoms and fell in love with beautiful maidens. The language was simpler than the classical texts Marcus had studied, and Jon found himself following along, learning the rhythm of modern Yi Tish through tales of sword-wielding champions.
"This one is my favorite," Mei Ling said one night, holding up a book with a worn cover. "The Tale of the Jade General. He starts as a farmer's son, but he has a gift—he can hear what the wind says. And the wind tells him where danger is coming from, so he becomes the greatest warrior in the empire."
"That sounds useful," Jon said carefully.
"You remind me of him sometimes. The way you go still and listen to things no one else can hear."
Jon said nothing. He hadn't realized she'd noticed.
She told him about the fortress, drawing maps in the air with her hands. The eastern wing where her rooms were. The western wing where Master Zhi kept his study. The training yards where her father's soldiers drilled. The kitchens where Cook Lian ruled with an iron ladle. The stables where Zephyr waited for her every morning.
"You have a horse," Jon said. It wasn't a question—she'd mentioned the mare a dozen times.
"Zephyr. Father gave her to me when I was seven. She's the fastest horse in the fortress. Maybe the fastest in the province." Pride shone in her voice. "Do you ride?"
"No."
"Never?"
"I was... I left home very young."
She waited, and Jon could see the questions forming behind her eyes. Where was home? Why did you leave? What happened to you? But she didn't ask them. She was learning, just as he was learning—learning that some questions hurt, and kindness meant knowing when not to ask.
"I'll teach you," she said instead. "When you're stronger. Zephyr is gentle with beginners."
"I'd like that."
The words came out before he could stop them, before he could calculate whether they revealed too much. But Mei Ling just smiled, and Jon found himself thinking that maybe—maybe—revealing something wasn't always dangerous.
Mei Ling
The servant's name was Wei, and he was new to the fortress.
That was the only explanation Mei Ling could find for what he did. He opened the door to Jon's room without knocking, without announcing himself, just pushed it open like he had every right to enter whenever he pleased.
Jon's reaction was instantaneous.
One moment he was sitting in bed, relaxed, almost smiling at something Mei Ling had said. The next he was pressed against the headboard with his hands raised defensively, his breathing fast and shallow, his grey eyes wild with something that looked like terror.
"What—" Wei started, but Mei Ling was already moving, stepping between the servant and the bed.
"Out," she said. Her voice came out colder than she'd intended. "Now."
"I just came to collect the—"
"Out."
Wei retreated, muttering about jumpy foreigners and difficult children. Mei Ling ignored him, turning back to Jon.
He hadn't moved. His hands were still raised—not to attack, she realized, but to defend. To ward off a blow he expected to come. His eyes were fixed on the door, watching it like it might open again at any moment.
What did they do to you? she wanted to ask. What happened that made you like this?
But she didn't ask. She knew better now.
Instead, she started talking.
"Did I tell you about the garden? There's a garden behind the main keep. My mother planted it. Before I was born. Cherry trees—that's what she loved. Pink blossoms in spring. They fall like snow, she used to say. Like pink snow."
Jon's breathing slowed, fraction by fraction.
"Father keeps it for her. He doesn't go there much—I think it hurts him—but he makes sure the gardeners tend it properly. There's a pond with golden fish. And a bench where you can sit and watch them swim."
His hands came down, though they still trembled slightly.
"I'll take you there. When you're well enough. You'll like it. It's quiet. Peaceful."
Finally, Jon looked at her. Not at the door, not at the corners of the room where threats might hide, but at her.
"Thank you," he said. His voice was hoarse.
"For what?"
"For... talking."
She didn't say you're welcome. That seemed too formal, too distant. Instead, she sat down in her usual chair and picked up the book she'd been reading.
"Now," she said, as if nothing had happened, "where were we? The Jade General was about to fight the Mountain Demon..."
After that day, Mei Ling started knocking.
She didn't make it obvious. Didn't announce I'm knocking because sudden entrances frighten you. She just... knocked. A light tap on the door before entering. A quiet "It's me" called through the wood.
And when other people were coming—servants with meals, Master Zhi for examinations, anyone—she warned him ahead of time. "Someone's coming in a moment" or "I hear footsteps in the corridor" or simply a meaningful glance toward the door.
Jon noticed. She could tell by the way his shoulders relaxed when she entered, by the way his eyes stopped darting to the door every few seconds. The wariness didn't disappear—she suspected it never would entirely—but it softened. Settled. Found a shape that could coexist with trust.
One afternoon, perhaps two weeks after the incident with Wei, Jon spoke without prompting.
"I used to flinch when you came in."
Mei Ling looked up from her book. "Did you?"
"Every time. In the beginning. But not anymore."
She waited, sensing he had more to say.
"That's new," he said quietly. "That's something."
She didn't ask what it meant. She just smiled and returned to her reading, letting the silence hold whatever gratitude he couldn't put into words.
Jon
The first steps were the hardest.
Not physically—his body had been healing faster than Master Zhi could explain, the breathing techniques working even in his sleep. No, the difficulty was something else. Leaving the room meant leaving safety. Meant being seen by strangers. Meant walking into a world he didn't understand and couldn't control.
But Mei Ling was there, her hand steady under his elbow, and somehow that made it possible.
"Slowly," she said as they shuffled down the corridor. "There's no rush."
Jon's legs shook with each step. His muscles had atrophied during the weeks of fever and bed rest, and even with the accelerated healing, his body remembered weakness better than strength. But he kept moving, one foot in front of the other, focusing on Mei Ling's voice and the steady warmth of her hand.
The corridor opened onto a courtyard, and Jon stopped.
Sunlight. Real sunlight, not filtered through window glass, but warm and direct on his face. The sky stretched above him—blue and vast and impossibly open. He'd forgotten how big the sky was. In the cargo holds and sick rooms and cramped cells of his journey, the world had shrunk to walls and ceilings. Now it expanded again, overwhelming.
"Are you all right?" Mei Ling asked.
Jon nodded, not trusting his voice.
The courtyard was beautiful in ways he hadn't expected. Not the grey austerity of Winterfell or the gaudy excess of Qarth, but something else—clean lines and curved roofs, gardens tucked into unexpected corners, the whole space designed to flow like water. Soldiers trained in a yard across the way, their movements precise and practiced. Servants passed with baskets and bundles, going about the ordinary business of life.
Ordinary, Jon thought. This is what ordinary looks like.
No chains. No guards watching for escape attempts. No one reached for a whip or called him property. A few curious glances came his way—his white hair drew attention, his foreign features marked him as different—but they were just glances. Just curiosity.
Is this what normal feels like? He'd forgotten. Had he ever really known?
"The training yards are over there," Mei Ling said, pointing. "My father says I'm too young to learn sword, but I've been watching the soldiers for years. I know all their forms."
"Show me?"
She demonstrated a basic stance, her feet planted wide, her hands mimicking a sword grip. It was rough, untutored, but the foundation was solid.
"Good," Jon said without thinking. "Your balance is good."
"How would you know?"
Jon caught himself. "I... watched soldiers once. In another place."
She accepted this with the ease she'd learned to accept all his half-answers, and they moved on.
The tour continued through the day—the kitchens where Cook Lian pressed honey cakes into both their hands, the stables where Zephyr whickered at Mei Ling's approach, the watchtower where you could see all the way to the mountains on clear days. Jon absorbed it all, mapping the fortress in his mind, noting exits and defensible positions out of habit he couldn't break.
But he noticed something else too.
The servants smiled at Mei Ling. Real smiles, not the fake ones of the fearful. They asked after her health, commented on her growth, shared small gossip about the fortress. They knew her—had known her since she was small, had watched her grow, had been part of her life in ways servants at Winterfell had never been part of his.
"They like you," Jon said as they left the kitchens.
"I hope so. I've known most of them my whole life."
Jon tried to imagine it. Knowing the same people your whole life. Having a place where everyone knew your name, where your presence was expected and welcomed rather than merely tolerated.
He couldn't. The closest he'd come was Winterfell, and Winterfell had made it clear he didn't belong.
But maybe here, a small voice whispered. Maybe here could be different.
He pushed the thought away. It was too dangerous to hope.
The garden was hidden behind the main keep, sheltered from the sea winds by high walls covered in flowering vines.
Mei Ling led him through a wooden gate, and Jon stopped, his breath catching.
Cherry trees. Dozens of them, their branches heavy with pink blossoms that drifted down like—yes, like snow. A pond glimmered in the center of the garden, golden fish moving lazily beneath the surface. Stone lanterns lined the paths, and in one corner stood a small shrine with incense burning before it, sweet smoke curling toward the sky.
"My mother planted this garden," Mei Ling said quietly. "Before I was born. Father keeps it for her."
Jon understood what she was giving him. This wasn't just a garden—it was a sacred space, a place of memory and love and loss. She was sharing something precious.
"It's beautiful."
"I come here when I'm sad. Or when I need to think." She paused, looking at him sideways. "You can come too. If you want. Whenever you need somewhere quiet."
An invitation. The first he'd received since Robb had said "You're my brother" in a training yard that now felt like another lifetime.
"I'd like that," Jon said.
They sat on the worn wooden bench, watching the fish swim lazy circles in the pond. The blossoms drifted down around them, catching in Mei Ling's dark hair and Jon's white. Neither spoke for a long time.
But it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. For once, it wasn't silence that needed to be filled.
Master Zhi
The boy had been in the fortress for a month when Zhi finally decided to act.
He'd spent that month observing, as was his way. Watching through servants' reports and Mei Ling's chatter and his own brief examinations. The physical recovery was remarkable—unprecedented, really—but Zhi was more interested in what couldn't be measured with poultices and pulse-checking.
The boy was intelligent. That much was obvious from his conversations with Mei Ling, which Zhi monitored with the discreet efficiency of decades of practice. He asked questions that a child shouldn't think to ask. He made connections that required knowledge he shouldn't possess. And his Yi Tish—classical, archaic, learned from sources that no Western child could have accessed—marked him as something extraordinary.
Or something dangerous, Zhi reminded himself. Extraordinary and dangerous are often the same thing.
He sent the invitation in the proper form—brushed characters on fine paper, delivered by his personal servant. A civilized approach for a civilized inquiry.
The honored guest is invited to tea in the study of Master Zhi, at the hour of the snake, should his health permit.
The boy came.
He walked carefully, still rebuilding his strength, but his grey eyes were alert as they swept Zhi's study. Zhi noted the way they lingered on the exits—door, window, the small servant's entrance behind the screen. Tactical assessment, automatic and thorough.
A child shouldn't think like that, Zhi thought. A child shouldn't need to.
But he said nothing of it. Instead, he gestured to the cushion across from him and poured tea with the ceremony such occasions demanded.
"Please. Sit. You must be tired from your walk."
Jon sat. His posture was formal, guarded—the posture of someone who expected traps in every interaction.
They spoke of nothing at first. The weather—unseasonably warm for the season. The tea—a blend from the southern provinces, delicate and slightly sweet. The view from Zhi's window—the same Jade Sea that had nearly claimed the boy's life.
Then, carefully, Zhi began his test.
"I was reading this morning," he said, "about the Battle of the Golden Bridge. A fascinating engagement. The way General Hsuan used the terrain—"
"He didn't use it well enough." The words came out before Jon could stop them. Zhi watched him freeze, realizing his mistake. "The eastern flank was exposed. If Lord Feng had struck there instead of the center—"
"Yes," Zhi said mildly. "That's precisely what the historical critique argues. Though it's a rather obscure source. Not widely read."
Silence. Jon's face had gone carefully blank.
"That's an unusual amount of knowledge for a Western child."
"I... read a lot. Before."
"Read where? In what language? Our military histories are not translated into the Common Tongue."
Jon said nothing. His hands, Zhi noticed, had curled into fists in his lap—not threatening, but defensive. Protecting himself from questions he couldn't answer.
Don't push, Zhi decided. Not yet.
"You know things," he said gently. "I don't know how or why. But knowledge shouldn't be wasted." He refilled Jon's tea, giving the boy time to breathe. "Would you like to learn properly? History, philosophy, strategy—I can teach you, if you're willing."
The wariness didn't leave Jon's eyes, but something else flickered there. Interest, perhaps. Or hunger.
"What's the price?"
"Price?"
"Everything has a price. Everything."
What have you been through, Zhi wondered, that you learned that lesson so young?
"No strings," he said. "Just an old man who enjoys a good student. And perhaps..." He paused, choosing his words with care. "You remind me of myself at your age. Too much in my head. Not enough people to talk to about it."
Jon considered this for a long moment. Zhi could almost see the calculations running behind those grey eyes—weighing risks, measuring potential betrayals, searching for the trap.
Finally, slowly, he nodded.
"I'll try."
"That's all I ask."
Jon
The lessons began the next day.
History first—Zhi's passion, as Jon quickly learned. The rise and fall of Yi Ti's dynasties, the emperors who'd built and destroyed and rebuilt again. The current civil war, explained with careful neutrality: three claimants to the jade throne, each with their supporters and their arguments, the empire fracturing along lines that had existed for centuries.
"Which one is right?" Jon asked after a particularly dense lesson on succession law.
"That's not a scholar's question."
"What is?"
"Why do they each believe they're right? What does their claim tell us about power and legitimacy? How does history shape the stories we tell ourselves about who deserves to rule?"
Jon absorbed this, filing it away. It resonated with something Marcus had known—that history was never just facts, but interpretation. That the same events could tell different stories depending on who was doing the telling.
Calligraphy came next, and here Jon struggled. His damaged fingers—broken in Yunkai, healed wrong—couldn't hold the brush properly. The strokes came out shaky, malformed, nothing like the elegant characters Zhi demonstrated.
"Try again," Zhi said, neither criticizing nor coddling. "The brush is not your enemy. It's an extension of your breath."
Jon tried. Failed. Tried again. The pain in his fingers was a constant companion, but Zhi never rushed him, never expressed disappointment. Just corrected and encouraged and demonstrated until Jon's characters, while not beautiful, were at least legible.
Philosophy was different. Here, Jon found himself on familiar ground—not from Marcus's memories, but from his own nature. The great sages wrote about balance, about duty, about the weight of choice. They wrote about how a person should live in a world that was cruel and beautiful in equal measure.
"The Jade Sage teaches that suffering shapes us," Zhi said one afternoon, reading from a scroll so old the paper had gone yellow. "'We are not what happens to us. We are what we choose to do with what happens to us.'"
Jon was silent for a long moment. Then: "What if you didn't choose? What if it just... happened?"
Zhi set down the scroll. "Then you choose now. What to do with what you've become. That choice is always yours."
Is it? Jon wondered. Is it really?
But he said nothing, and the lesson continued.
The weeks passed.
Jon grew stronger, strong enough to walk the fortress grounds without help. He ate meals in his room, still too wary to face the dining hall and its unknown quantities. He spent mornings with Mei Ling—their language games had evolved into genuine conversation, half Yi Tish and half Common Tongue—and afternoons with Zhi, filling his mind with knowledge that felt less borrowed now, more earned.
One afternoon, after a particularly engaging lesson on military strategy, Zhi poured more tea and studied Jon with those sharp scholar's eyes.
"You're an unusual child, Jon."
"Is that bad?"
"No. Unusual is rarely bad. It's simply... unusual."
Something shifted in Jon's chest. Almost a smile. He didn't quite return it.
But he was closer than he'd been in a long time.
Jon
The invitation came at the end of his sixth week in the fortress.
The honored guest is invited to dine with General Kai's household, at the hour of the rooster.
Jon stared at the paper for a long time, as if the characters might rearrange themselves into something less terrifying.
A formal meal. With the general. In public. Where people could see him and judge him and decide he didn't belong.
He was still staring when Mei Ling appeared at his door, knocking first as she always did now.
"Stop panicking."
"I'm not—"
"I can hear you panicking from across the fortress."
"You can't hear—"
"Your face is doing that thing. The scared thing."
"I don't have a 'scared thing.'"
"You absolutely do. Your eyes go all wide and your mouth gets tight and you look like a rabbit that's seen a hawk." She crossed her arms, looking disturbingly like her father in that moment. "Come on. I'll sit next to you. If you do something wrong, I'll kick you under the table."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not meant to be. Now let me help you with your clothes. You can't meet my father looking like you slept in a haystack."
The dining room was smaller than Jon expected.
Elegant, yes—carved wooden panels, silk hangings, a low table set with porcelain dishes that probably cost more than everything Jon had ever owned combined. But smaller. More intimate. Just four places set around the table: General Kai at the head, Master Zhi to his right, Mei Ling and Jon across from each other.
Jon felt exposed. Every inch of his skin prickled with the certainty that he was being watched, judged, found wanting. His hands wanted to shake, and he held them very still in his lap, focusing on his breathing.
In. Hold. Out. Steady.
General Kai was a weathered man of perhaps fifty, with iron-grey hair and eyes that had seen things Jon could only imagine. He moved with the economy of a soldier, spoke with the directness of a commander. But there was something else in his face when he looked at his daughter—a softness that didn't quite fit with the rest of him.
"You've recovered well," Kai said to Jon. His voice was neutral, neither warm nor cold. "Master Zhi tells me you're an unusual student."
"Master Zhi is a good teacher."
"That's not what I asked."
Jon swallowed. "I try to learn what I'm taught."
Kai studied him for a long moment, and Jon had the uncomfortable feeling of being assessed—not as a threat, not quite, but as a puzzle that needed solving.
Then Kai nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever he'd seen, and turned to his food.
The meal proceeded.
Dumplings came first, then rice, then vegetables in sauces Jon had never tasted. He ate carefully, watching Mei Ling for cues on which utensils to use and how to hold them. She caught his eye occasionally, offering small smiles of encouragement. Once, when he reached for the wrong dish, she nudged his elbow almost imperceptibly, redirecting him.
She'd promised to kick him under the table, but the reality was gentler. Just small corrections, offered without judgment or attention.
She's good at this, Jon realized. Taking care of people without making them feel small.
Zhi shared a story about a foolish student he'd had years ago, one who'd been so eager to prove his intelligence that he'd quoted a text incorrectly and then argued with the correction for an hour. Mei Ling laughed, and even Kai's mouth twitched with something that might have been amusement.
Jon watched them interact—father and daughter and teacher, bound by years of shared history, of meals eaten together and stories told and ordinary days lived in ordinary rhythm. They knew each other's rhythms, anticipated each other's responses. They were a family in ways Jon had never quite been part of a family, even in Winterfell.
And somehow, impossibly, they'd made a space for him at their table.
Halfway through the meal, Jon realized his hands had stopped wanting to shake. No one was watching him for mistakes. No one was waiting to punish him. They were just eating, just talking, just being.
This is real, he thought. They're not going to hurt you. This is real.
The emotion hit him without warning—a wave of something so vast and unexpected that he had to excuse himself, murmuring an apology, and flee to the washroom.
He splashed water on his face. Stared at his reflection in the bronze mirror—white hair, grey eyes, face that was still too thin but no longer starving. A boy he barely recognized.
You're safe, he told that boy. You're safe, and they're kind, and this is real.
The boy in the mirror didn't quite believe him. But that was all right. Jon barely believed himself.
When he returned to the dining room, Mei Ling had saved him a sweet rice cake.
"The best part of the meal," she whispered, sliding it across the table. "I had to fight Cook Lian for extra."
Jon took a bite. The sweetness burst across his tongue—honey and rice and something floral he couldn't identify.
"It's delicious."
He said it quietly, but Mei Ling beamed as if he'd recited poetry. And Jon realized, with a start, that he meant it. Not just the food—though the food was good—but all of it. The meal. The company. The warmth of being welcomed instead of merely tolerated.
"Thank you," he added. "For... everything."
Mei Ling's smile softened into something more serious. "You're welcome. For everything."
Walking back to his room, Jon allowed himself to think the thought he'd been avoiding for weeks.
Maybe. Maybe I could belong here.
It was the most dangerous thought he'd had in years. Belonging meant trusting. Trusting meant vulnerability. Vulnerability meant pain when—not if, when—everything fell apart.
But it was also the most hopeful thought he'd had in years. And hope, he was learning, was harder to kill than he'd imagined.
He thought of Robb, back in Winterfell, who'd called him brother even when the word was forbidden. He thought of Dalla on the Mermaid's Grace, who'd fed him when she could have turned him in. He thought of Tagganaro in Braavos, who'd taught him that family wasn't always blood.
Maybe kindness wasn't as rare as he'd believed. Maybe there were places in the world where broken things could be mended, where lost things could be found.
Maybe, just maybe, he'd found one.
Jon reached his room, closed the door behind him, and stood in the darkness for a long moment.
Then, for the first time he could remember, he smiled.
It was small and uncertain, and it faded quickly. But it was there.
That was something.
That was enough.