Bryant lingered, helping Grace ferry empty cups to the kitchen. When the others had left, he stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching her.
“You should try to sleep,” he said. “It’s not good to obsess about these things.”
She wiped down the counter, her hands steady now. “You heading home?”
He hesitated. “Someone’s got to patrol, just in case our friend decides to get creative.”
Grace set the rag aside and crossed the room, stopping just shy of touching him. “Be careful. Please.”
He smiled, small and real. “Always.” He bent and kissed her forehead, the contact so brief it might have been an accident, but she felt it for long minutes after the door closed.
She padded upstairs, undressed with numb fingers, and slid into bed. The Lantern House creaked and whispered, wind moaning in the gutters, but the fire’s warmth lingered, a slow pulse under the skin.
She tried to sleep, but her mind wouldn’t still. She thought of Tessa, of the necklace, of the way the water had seemed to move, alive with intent. She thought of the raven’s promise, of Valentine’s Day, of all the years she’d spent trying to make sense of things she couldn’t control.
She got up and went to the window, the one overlooking the back garden. The snow was perfect, unbroken. Nothing moved.
But in the ash tree at the far end of the yard, she saw a shape. Just a dark lump at first, but then the head cocked, the body shifted. Raven. She blinked, and it was gone.
Grace wrapped her arms around herself, pressed her forehead to the cold pane, and let herself believe it was just a bird, just a night animal, just a piece of the world that didn’t give a damn about her or her town or her borrowed magic.
But she knew better. And she knew it wasn’t over.
In a few hours, the sun would rise. The day would be Christmas, and the town would stagger back to its routines, pretending nothing bad ever happened here. But Grace would remember.
And she would be ready.
But at least she didn’t have to face it alone.
17
The day after Christmas was supposed to be for sleeping in and regretting the extra cookie, but Grace’s Lantern House was alive well before noon. The storm had passed and left everything glazed with diamonds. By ten, Caroline was in the kitchen arguing with the espresso machine and Anna was already “supervising” from the barstools, her hair in two perfect braids like a Scandinavian ad for mulled wine. Olivia glided in wearing a robe that cost more than Grace’s first car, carrying a box of imported panettone and making it look like nothing at all.
Bryant arrived last, the only one who knocked before coming in, with a grocery bag full of oranges and a face so scrubbed it was almost childlike. He wore his hair mussed and a thermal shirt that could have been painted on. Grace didn’t know why this made her nervous, but it did.
They called it a “brunch,” but it was closer to a sit-in. There was enough coffee to caffeinate every mom at drop off at the school, and the menu was “Caroline’s Christmas Morning Casserole,” which contained at least six kinds of cheese and something that might have been hashbrowns but could also have been tater tots. Anna contributed three kinds of smoked salmonand a bottle of aquavit; Olivia, in a rare moment of culinary humility, brought only the panettone and a box of chocolates.
Bryant, who’d never once cooked in Grace’s presence, peeled oranges with meticulous care and lined them in neat segments around the edge of her plates.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re obsessive?” Grace said, half-teasing.
He nodded, as if this were an unremarkable fact. “Came up a lot in marriage counseling.”
Anna cackled. “He does that with potato chips, too. Lines them up by size and flavor. Robert says it’s how you know a man can be trusted.”
“Robert’s eating habits are a cry for help,” Olivia deadpanned, but she accepted a plate from Bryant anyway and arranged the orange slices into a sunburst on her panettone.
Grace put on the Motown Christmas playlist and cranked it so loud the espresso machine’s hiss was drowned out. Someone, probably Caroline, spiked the second pot of coffee with Bailey’s, and nobody pretended to mind.
The first hour was pure holiday aftershock. Caroline recounted the full saga of Tessa’s hospital drama. “She tried to live-tweet her own intake! With the oxygen mask still on!” Anna bemoaned the local elementary school’s decision to cancel the Christmas pageant because the moms wouldn’t stop fighting, and Olivia held court about the time she’d catered for an actual, literal cult. “No carbs after sunset, and the appetizers had to be cut into perfectly even triangles or the high priest got twitchy.” Bryant contributed mostly by refilling coffee and letting the others talk, which seemed to be his idea of a party.
Grace found herself almost happy. She wore leggings under her flannel nightgown and didn’t care that it looked like the sleepwear of a frontier orphan. She let herself lean into the comfort, the chatter, the way her kitchen looked filled withpeople who felt more like family every day. She’d grown up braced for sudden departures, for moving boxes and empty rooms. The sheer dailiness of this, Bryant, Anna, Caroline, Olivia, felt, for once, like a thing she could keep.
Eventually, Caroline clapped her hands. “Enough reminiscing! It’s time for the gift exchange, and no one gets more coffee until we do it right.”
Anna made a show of groaning. “You already gave me a gift, remember? It was a bottle of shampoo labeled ‘For Unruly Sea Creatures.’”
Caroline beamed. “I’m a giver.”
