"Go," Thera urges, making shooing motions with her hands. "Before Irida decides to come in and drag you out herself."
I push away from the counter, my decision made for me by six years of practice at being unable to deny my daughter anything she truly wants. The back door opens onto the terrace where my guards watch with barely concealed amusement as Irida demonstrates the proper technique for snow architecture.
"Dad!" Her voice carries across the garden like music, bright and clear in the cold air. "Dad, come see! We made snow likar and they're magnificent!"
The joy in her voice pulls me forward despite every instinct that screams this is dangerous territory. Irida races toward me with her usual enthusiasm, leaving Heidi standing beside their creations with an expression I can't quite read.
"Look what we built!" Irida crashes into my legs with the full force of her small body, wings fluttering as she points toward an impressive collection of snow sculptures. "Heidi—Oh, Dad, this is my friend Heidi—she showed me how to make the manes all fluffy, and we gave them ember eyes made from your fire crystals!"
Sure enough, scattered across the dark sand are half a dozen snow creatures that actually do resemble the stone likar that guard the city temples. Someone with artistic skill and infinitepatience helped craft them, because Irida's usual snow attempts look more like abstract lumps than recognizable animals.
"They're very impressive," I tell her honestly, crouching down so we're eye level. "You've been working hard."
"Heidi worked hard too," Irida says with the fierce loyalty she shows toward anyone she's decided to claim as hers. "She's really good at building things, and she knows lots of stories about snow creatures from other places. Did you know that in the northern mountains, people make snow dragons that they enchant to fly around their villages?"
"I did not know that." I glance toward Heidi, who's watching our interaction with careful attention. "That sounds like quite an adventure."
"She said maybe someday she could show me the real ones, if we ever travel north." Irida's eyes shine with the kind of hope that could move mountains or break hearts, depending on the circumstances.
The casual way she talks about 'someday' and 'we' sends something sharp through my chest. In the span of a single afternoon, my daughter has apparently decided that Heidi is a permanent fixture in her life. The thought should terrify me—and part of it does. But another part, the part that's been aching all day from the incomplete bond, whispers that maybe Irida's instincts aren't wrong.
"Dad, can you help us make the biggest snow likar ever?" Irida asks, tugging on my hand with both of hers. "Heidi says it would be easier with someone tall to reach the high parts."
I should say no. I should take Irida inside, remind Heidi of the boundaries of her situation, and return to the safer distance of treating her like what she is—a complication I'm forced to endure.
Instead, I find myself nodding. Because my daughter has never had me turn her down. "Show me what you need."
Irida's squeal of delight probably echoes across half the district as she drags me toward their sculpture site. Heidi watches our approach with wariness, but there's something else in her expression now—a softness around her eyes as she takes in the way Irida clings to my hand like I might disappear if she lets go.
"Heidi, this is my dad," Irida announces unnecessarily. Like she hasn't considered why Heidi was even in the house in the first place. "Dad, this is Heidi. She's wonderful."
The simple, matter-of-fact way she says it—like Heidi being wonderful is as obvious as the sky being blue—does something dangerous to the careful walls I've built around my feelings about this situation.
"We've met," I say carefully, offering Heidi a nod that I hope conveys politeness rather than the complicated tangle of attraction and suspicion currently warring in my chest.
"Hello," Heidi replies, her voice carrying the same careful neutrality. But there's something different about her now—less sharp edges, fewer visible weapons. Being with Irida seems to have sanded away some of her defensive spikes, revealing glimpses of who she might be when she's not fighting for survival.
"Tell him about the snow dragon village," Irida demands, settling herself on a convenient snowbank like she's preparing for a lengthy tale. "Tell him about the ice bridges and the wind dancers."
Heidi glances at me uncertainly, probably trying to gauge whether I want to hear stories from a thief or if I'm looking for reasons to end this impromptu gathering. What she finds in my expression must reassure her, because she begins talking about a village built into mountainsides where the residents craft elaborate ice sculptures that move with the wind.
Her voice, when she's not wielding it like a weapon, has a musical quality that matches the lyrical way she describes frozen waterfalls and buildings carved from solid ice. Irida hangs on every word, occasionally asking questions that Heidi answers with the kind of detail that suggests she's actually been to these places rather than simply heard about them.
As she talks, I find myself watching the way winter light catches the gold flecks in her gray eyes, the unconscious grace of her gestures as she describes the wind dancers who perform on platforms of enchanted ice. There's intelligence in her storytelling, an artist's eye for detail that speaks to education beyond what most thieves receive.
More mysteries. More complications.
When Irida insists we begin work on our massive snow likar, I find myself kneeling in dark sand beside a woman who should be my prisoner, helping my daughter create something beautiful and temporary. Heidi works with efficient skill, her hands sure as she shapes snow into recognizable forms. Every so often, she glances at me with something that might be surprise, as if she didn't expect me to know how to play.
"The mane needs to be bigger," Irida declares from her perch on my shoulders, where she's directing operations with the authority of a general commanding troops. "More fierce. Heidi, show him how you did the curly parts on the little ones."
Without hesitation, Heidi reaches across the space between us to guide my hands in the proper technique. Her fingers are cool against mine, but not cold—just enough contrast to make me hyperaware of every point of contact. The touch sends heat racing up my arms, and for a moment I forget how to breathe.
She pulls back quickly, as if she's felt the same electric jolt, her cheeks flushing with color that has nothing to do with the winter air.
"Like that," she says quietly, not quite meeting my eyes.
The casual intimacy of the moment—three of us working together, Irida's laughter mixing with our quieter conversation, the domesticity of shared creation—shakes me. This is what I didn't know I was missing. Not just companionship, but this specific constellation of people, this particular harmony.
