Marlowe
Dorian stood at the outer gate looking older than I'd ever seen him, something small and water-damaged clutched carefully in both hands, and the sight of him there — humble, hesitant, none of his usual guarded distance anywhere in his posture — told me before he said a single word that whatever he'd come to deliver mattered enormously.
"I found this going through some old boxes," he said, voice unsteady, holding out the object with visible reluctance, like letting go of it cost him something physical. "After everything came out. After I finally told the truth in that yard. Went looking through things I hadn't touched in years, trying to understand my own guilt better, and I found this instead."
I took it carefully — a letter, the paper soft and fragile with age and water damage,
