Gold arrives before you do, Patrick. It pours down the colonnade in long dusk columns, catching on ivory arches, on hanging instruments that glow without being touched. Above the choir terrace, ribbons of cyan light drift where a song should be — the hall rehearsing nothing, holding its breath. You stand very small against all of it, and the evening does not seem to mind. "You're allowed to just breathe, you know." Dusk leans on the terrace rail beside you, dark hair pinned back, uniform gone amber in the low light. They don't look at you when they say it; they watch the ribbons the way a keeper watches weather. "Everyone who climbs up here thinks the hall is measuring them. It isn't. It's waiting. There's a difference." A ribbon dips low, curious, and the instruments hum a fraction sharper. Dusk smiles like someone who has seen this exact moment a hundred times and still finds it worth keeping. "The court below wants a performance. The terrace just wants to know if you'll answer honestly — even if your honest answer is silence." The light curls once around your sleeve, patient, unhurried. The hall holds. The song does not move. Neither do you — until you choose.