The morning of the phone call dawned with a brittle cheerfulness. Yasmine dressed with robotic care, choosing a simple blue sundress from the modest selection the Covenant had provided. Armor, of a sort. She had spent half the night thinking about who she needed to be. The answer was simple: she needed to be no one. A pleasant, forgettable ghost.
At 8:15, Liana met her in the common room with her phone. "Thirty minutes starts now," she said with an apologetic smile. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything." It was a polite fiction. They both knew Liana would be listening, or the log would be reviewed.
Yasmine took the phone to the south-facing balcony, the one with the view of the endless, taunting sea. She scrolled through the single contact saved in the phone: Celia. A name from her file, she assumed. A former coworker at a fictional design firm. A strand in the web of her false life.
She dialed. It rang twice.
"Celia Williams." The voice on the other end was bright, professional, utterly hollow.
"Celia. Hi, it's… it's Yas." The shortened name felt strange on her tongue.
"Yas! Oh my god, how are you? We've missed you at the office!" The enthusiasm was a perfect, plastic performance. It was chilling. Who was on the other end? Another resident in some other compound? A Covenant actor?
"I'm… good. Really good." She forced warmth into her voice, layering it over the numbness. "The retreat is amazing. So peaceful. Exactly what I needed."
"That's fantastic to hear! And the weather? Martin was just saying we should all do a team wellness week somewhere like that." Martin. Another fabricated name. Another thread.
They performed a flawless, four-minute scene. Talk of the "big project" Yasmine had needed a break from. Envious sighs about the sea air. Promises to have coffee when she was "back in the swing of things." It was a masterpiece of mundane nothingness.
When she hung up, she felt more drained than if she'd run for miles. The performance had taken everything. She had twenty-six minutes left. She stared at the phone, then at the horizon. Who did she want to call? The ghost of the person she used to be? The family she hadn't spoken to in years, who believed she was on a prolonged work assignment in another country? There was no one. That was the point of being here. To be no one, from nowhere.
A burst of genuine laughter echoed from the courtyard below. She looked down.
Leo was in the middle of the lavender hedge maze, waving his arms dramatically, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat that belonged to David. David himself stood at the edge, arms crossed, but his shoulders were shaking with silent mirth. Leo was apparently re-enacting the epic battle of "Man vs. Seagull" over a stolen pastry, complete with sound effects and exaggerated swoops.
It was absurd. It was silly. It was utterly human.
A smile tugged, unbidden, at Yasmine's lips.
She watched as Liana came out with a tray of lemonade, laughing at Leo's antics. Even Gareth, standing watchful by the gate, cracked a faint, reluctant smile.
Then Rafe emerged from the villa. He stopped on the colonnade steps, observing the scene. Leo, spotting him, launched into an even more elaborate finale, bowing with a flourish that sent the hat tumbling. Rafe didn't laugh. But as he bent to pick up the hat, dusting it off, something remarkable happened.
The harsh, forbidding lines of his face softened. Not into a smile, but into something quieter, more profound. An expression of… fondness? Exasperated tolerance? He handed the hat back to Leo, said something too low to hear, and gave the younger man's shoulder a brief, firm clap. It was a gesture of unspoken camaraderie. Of belonging.
The sight hit Yasmine with a strange, poignant ache. Here, in this gilded cage, were moments of real connection. Flawed, monitored, existing under threat, but real. Leo's laughter was not a performance. It was a defiance.
She looked down at the phone in her hand. An idea, reckless and terrifying, sparked.
She went back inside, to the bookshelf in the common room. She found a tattered old guide to Mediterranean coastal flora. On the inside back cover, in faint pencil, was a handwritten note: For M, who loves the sea lavender. - J. A forgotten sentiment from a forgotten life. She carefully erased it.
Then, with her fingernail, she began to scratch. It was slow, deliberate work. She carved a tiny, crude bird in flight. It was awkward, lopsided. It was perfect. It was Leo's bird.
She spent the rest of her phone time not making a call, but carving that small, defiant symbol of freedom into the inside cover of a forgotten book. It was a message to no one. It was a message to herself. I am still here. I can still see beauty.
When Liana returned to collect the phone, Yasmine handed it over with a serene smile. "No one else to call," she said, and it was the truest thing she'd said all day.
The afternoon found her on the shaded south lawn with a book she wasn't reading. Leo found her.
"You look like you're contemplating the profound meaning of seabird droppings," he said, plopping down on the grass beside her.
She laughed, a real, startled sound. "Is that a philosophical pastime here?"
"It is when Gareth is on cleaning duty." Leo grinned, plucking a blade of grass. "Seriously though. The quiet gets you, huh? First week is the worst. You start hearing your own heartbeat like it's a drum solo."
She looked at him, this boy with the freckles and the shock of red hair and the eyes that had seen too much for someone so young. "How do you… not go mad?"
He leaned back on his elbows, looking at the sky. "You find the cracks. The places where the sunlight gets in. David lets me help in the greenhouse. The soil doesn't judge you. Liana has a secret stash of terrible romance novels she'll lend you if you swear never to mention the shirtless Highlanders. And sometimes," he said, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper, "you just have to declare war on a pastry-thieving gull. For honour."
She laughed again, and it felt easier this time. Lighter. "What's your crack, Leo? Really?"
His smile faded just a bit, but didn't vanish. "My birds," he said simply. "I draw them. The ones that are meant to fly away. It's… hope, I guess. That something can be born in a cage but meant for the sky." He looked at her, his gaze sharpening. "You need to find your bird, Yasmine."
Before she could answer, a shadow fell over them.
Rafe stood there, holding two glasses of iced tea. He looked from Leo to Yasmine, his expression unreadable. "Marta thought you might be thirsty."
He handed a glass to Yasmine. His fingers brushed against hers. A static shock, small and sharp, passed between them. Her breath hitched. His eyes flicked to hers, then away, as if scorched.
He handed the other glass to Leo. "Your hedge performance needs work. The seagull's motivation was unclear."
Leo beamed as if given a great compliment. "I'm workshopping it, boss. Tragic backstory for the gull next time. Lost his favourite fishing spot to a tourist boat."
A faint, almost imperceptible curve touched Rafe's mouth. It wasn't a smile. It was the ghost of one, a fleeting crack in the granite. He gave a short nod and walked back toward the villa.
Leo watched him go, then turned to Yasmine, his eyes dancing. "See? Sunlight. Gets in through the weirdest cracks."
That evening, the atmosphere at dinner was different. The success of the supply boat—which had brought new books, seeds for David, and a box of dark chocolate—had lifted spirits. Elise was back, debating coastal erosion with Gareth of all people. Liana described a ridiculous plot from one of her secret novels. Leo provided sound effects.
Yasmine found herself contributing. She told a story about a disastrous office party from her fabricated past, embellishing the details, painting a picture of a clumsy, harmless girl. They laughed. She made them laugh.
And from the head of the table, where he sat quietly eating, she felt Rafe's gaze. It wasn't the stormy, possessive watchfulness from before. It was something quieter, more complex. He was watching her come alive. He was watching her use laughter as a shield, as a weapon, as a connection. And in the depths of his grey eyes, she saw a reflection of that tiny, carved bird. A flicker of something like wonder, and a deep, resonant ache.
Later, as she headed to her room, he was in the hallway, adjusting a crooked painting of a sailing ship. He didn't look at her as she passed.
But as she drew level with him, his hand shot out, not to grab her, but to hover just beside her own, an inch from touching. A silent acknowledgment in the dim light.
She paused. He didn't move. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin.
Then, without a word, she continued to her room. She didn't look back.
But that night, for the first time, the silence didn't feel like a vacuum. It felt like a space she was beginning to fill—with the echo of laughter, with the memory of a carved bird, and with the electric, unspoken promise of a touch that had yet to come. The armor was working. And she had a terrifying suspicion that the Keeper of the cage was the one most vulnerable to its charm.