The sun had burned off the cloud and gloom by that afternoon, just as anticipated. The snow on the ground reflected the sunshine as it melted, and suddenly the city was bathed in light that seemed to come in from all angles.

Winterwing found himself back in that same spot in the memorial square, now in the shadow of the DuCaine statue, absently poking at a screen, somehow too anxious to focus on any one thing. The scrimmage below was long over, and was now replaced with the normal twists and flow of impulsive recreational skating. He’d gotten some work done before returning, but it had been the halfhearted sort of work that had long moments of staring out a window in between. The fog had vanished from outside, and settled instead between his ears.

He recognized her first, but it was a shaky recognition. She had previously been near skeletal, drawn tight, and had the faint odor that seemed to linger with sickness. The intervening months had helped, though she still seemed a little frail, and moved as though her joints ached. She was alive though, and he found himself genuinely happy for it. He had wondered, constantly, if she had survived. No one had been able to tell him, and he had given himself no way to know.

The stained and fractured feathers had turned to a clean white, and the crusted hair turned blonde, still closely cropped to her head. There were the eyes, that he realized should not have been as brilliantly blue as they were, and he would remember, briefly, thinking the same thing on that first day, but not knowing what that meant.

She approached, but was not looking at him, or the people around them, but rather straight up at the statue behind him, leaning her head in the sideways way that people did when they’re unsure of a thing. That cinched it, she was not local.

“You’ve never seen it before,” Winterwing said, standing up, and she glanced at him. There was no recognition there, and he found himself just the slightest bit disappointed. Of course she would not remember him, she was barely alive at the time. It was foolish to have assumed that she could have.

He added “You must be Emily,” to put her at ease.

“It’s different from the pictures I’ve seen,” she said, a little frown on her face as she looked back to it.

He had assumed that the images had made it look far smaller than it actually was, rather than take that phrase as literal. Her eyes drifted down, to the growing crowd of people beneath it, in the rink proper, enjoying the warm afternoon.

She seemed to remember herself then, and held out a bundle to him. “This is yours, then.”

Sure enough, his jacket. Though it appeared someone had taken it upon themselves to clean it since he had last seen it. He had spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for it, somehow remembering every other detail of that meeting, but not that he had left his jacket behind.

“How did you even find me?” he asked.

“You left business flimsies in a pocket.”

There they were, in a neat stack. “And that’s the only use I’ve ever gotten out of them,” he mused.

She gave a small, faltering smile, and looked back up at the statue.

“You look-” but he cut himself off, unsure. ‘Better’, he wanted to say, but could not decide if this was rude. Instead, he said: “I’m glad everything turned out okay.”

Emily gave one of those little exhalations that was a half-laugh. “I don’t know if everything turned out okay.” She looked at him again, and went silent. “I should probably go.”

“You’re just going to hand me my jacket and go?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’m just passing through, it was convenient.”

It didn’t sound convenient at all. Convenient would have been having it shipped back to him, or perhaps just trashing it without a second thought. He certainly wouldn’t have ever realized. But, he could not place why she had felt the need to lie, and watched for a dumbfounded moment as she began to drift away, dismissing him, fully intending to vanish again.

She had done what he had wanted, and given him the conclusion. She had survived. That’s all he had wanted to know. That was what he had been obsessing over.

“Wait,” he said, grabbing his things and catching up to her. She didn’t hear him, and he called again, and stopped short of grabbing her shoulder. She looked doubtfully at his hand when she heard him and turned.

He retracted it, embarrassed. “Have you ever had Helios?”

“Have what?”

“Your first time in the city, right?” he said. “Probably one of the best places you could try.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then as comprehension dawned, her eyes narrowed, “You’re asking me to dinner.”

“I am asking if you would like dinner.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, what you said made it sound weird.”

“It is weird,” she said, though she seemed to find the request amusing.

“A little,” he allowed. “But it’s fine, I was meeting my sister there anyway. She won’t mind.” He thought about it. “Actually she’d probably be thankful for the company.”

“You don’t know me,” Emily shook her head, a polite smile on her lips.

“I’d like to,” Winterwing said, and was astonished at himself even as he said it. “Just for an hour.”

She looked for a moment to be forming the face to say no, but surprised him. “Fine. An hour.”