“Dad.”
My arms are around his neck before I can think, before I can stop myself. I breathe him in—woodsmoke, worn leather, something unmistakablyhim—and the world finally feels steady again. Safe.
“I was waiting for you to come see me,” he says, smiling so wide it reaches his eyes. He pulls back just enough to hold me at arm’s length, studying me like he’s afraid I might vanish if he looks away for too long. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
I let the question fall away. There’s too much pressing against my chest, too many words tangled together.
“Dad… I know everything,” I say quietly. “About Mum. About Luca. What he was.”
His shoulders sag, the tension draining out of him all at once. He exhales, breath hitching, like he’s been holding it for years and only now dares to let it go.
“Look… I’m sorry—”
“Stop.” I step forward and hug him again, tighter this time, like I can anchor us both in this moment. “I know why you didn’t tell me.” My voice breaks despite myself. “Thank you… for everything.”
He doesn’t speak. He just holds me. And for a moment, that’s all we do.
“What Gift did you get?” he finally asks, breaking the comfortable silence. “Your mum told me you might inherit both… but she was never sure.”
His eyes darken at the mention of her, sorrow flickering there before giving way to quiet intrigue.
“She was right,” I say softly, a small smile touching my lips.
Grief presses in on us, thick and tangible, like hands tightening around our throats. I swallow, thinking of everything he carried alone—how much he hid, how fiercely he protected me. I remember watching him in Oriah’s scales on the day of my Gifting, the way his face gave him away. He had loved her endlessly. And he hadn’t even been allowed to mourn her properly, because no one knew he had been sheltering her at all.
“I’m so glad she came to me that day,” he says, his voice low, as if grief has a taste he can feel on his tongue. “That she trusted me.”
He looks at me then, really looks.
“You were… everything.”
A tear slips free, glistening as it trails down his cheek.
After a while wrapped in each other’s arms, he makes us chamomile tea and guides me to the sofa. He says he wants to hear everything—about the school, my Gifts, my life there—and for a moment, I don’t know where to begin.
Then the words start coming, unstoppable. Oriah. Nala. The elions. Stories tumble out of me like I’ve been holding them back for years.
At one point, he asks if I’ve met any boys I like at school. I know what he really means—it’s his careful way of asking if I have a boyfriend without being too intrusive. I hold my breath when I tell him about Ryder, half-expecting disapproval, afraidhe’ll see history repeating itself, the same dangerous mistake my mother made.
But he doesn’t flinch.
He listens.
And when I finish, he simply nods, calm and accepting, and something in my chest finally loosens.
“You loved her, didn’t you?” I ask as he lifts his tea to his lips.
“More than anything,” he says. His eyes catch the low light, shining with a love that never really left.
I stare into the brown swirl of my mug. “If you knew something about her that could’ve hurt her… would you have told her? Or kept it to yourself?”
He pauses, cup hovering just short of the table. “Well,” he says carefully, brows knitting. “What’s this about?”
“N-nothing. It’s nothing,” I say too quickly, dunking the teabag again and again, watching the liquid darken. Ryder’s violet gaze flashes in my mind. I can’t tell him the truth—not that the person I love nearly killed me or that he might again. My father would never let me go back.
He exhales slowly. “I suppose it depends,” he says at last, setting his mug down on the coffee table. “On how big the aftermath would be.”
A soft orb of light blooms from his fingers and drifts across the room, igniting the fireplace with a low, steady glow.
