On the morning of her birthday, she woke up to find a single, wilted blue iris on her pillow and a card in messy handwriting:

"The Indigo Year is the hardest," he told her as they sat on the porch. "Everyone wants to polish the glass until it’s bright. But blue is the color of the deep ocean and the high sky. It’s where things grow quietly."

Sorana looked at her Echo-Glass. In the reflection, she didn't see a girl who was broken; she saw a girl who had survived a long winter. She realized that her sadness wasn't a shadow following her—it was a companion that had taught her how to be still, how to listen, and how to feel the weight of the world without snapping.