Lori let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "The storm?"
Lori pleads for Mina. Mizuki says: “The Queen’s frost isn’t a sickness. It’s a lock. She sealed spring inside her frozen heart. To melt it, someone must offer what she lost: a love that chooses sacrifice, not vengeance.”
On the desk, the book was no longer bleeding. The tape she had applied had dissolved into gold dust. The pages were pristine, the illustration of the Prince now showing him standing free in a sunlit forest.