"Something like that," she said quietly.
The words were light, but Elara could feel the weight beneath them. There was more—more than Valeria was willing to reveal, more than she was ready to shape into neat sentences across a dining table. A story with uneven edges and shadows she hadn't yet decided how to share.
Elara didn't press. She simply watched her, reading the subtle tension in the girl's shoulders, the way her fingers tightened around her cup for a heartbeat before easing again. Valeria wasn't lying. She wasn't deflecting, not exactly. She was choosing her timing.
And Elara understood that instinct well.
'You're telling me the surface… but not the whole.'
'I know that pattern. I've lived it.'
