He considers the question, then says, "Because I want you to understand how alone we are now. The council won't help. The guards won't help. Even the old families are hedging their bets."
He sits back, hands open, palms up. "It's just us."
I stare at the paper, trying to feel the right emotion.
Anger?
Relief?
Vindication?
None of them land.
What I feel is smaller, colder—a tightening of the world around the edges.
"They want you out of the city," he says, eyes glinting coldly. "They think if you disappear, the story goes with you."
"And what do you want?"
He looks at me, finally, and the moment is so loaded I have to drop my own eyes.
"I want you alive," he says.
"Even if that means hiding you in a closet in Wicklow until the city forgets you exist."
I smile, but it's all teeth.
"That's not my style."
He shrugs, just a twitch of one shoulder.
"It's not your decision."
I step closer, hands in the pockets of Lena's hoodie, feeling the folded paper burn against my skin.
"You think I'll let them bury me after all this?"
He shrugs again, but his hands tighten on the desk.
"I think you'll do what you have to. That's what you do. But Keira?—"
I circle the desk, closing the distance until I stand at his side.
The map on the table is old, corners gone soft and edges curling where the adhesive's failed.
I find my old neighborhood, finger the street where my father was shot, and flatten the page with my palm.
"This is my city, too," I say, loud enough for it to echo a little. "You don't get to decide who stays and who runs."
He turns, and this time the look is different—less the cold mask of strategy, more the quicksilver calculation of a man doing math he doesn't want to finish.
The silence drags out, thick and dangerous, until I can almost hear it grinding down the gears in his head.
He says, "You're going to be a mom."
I nod.
"All the more reason, then."
