Chapter Thirty-Eight
My dad came down the corridor in human form, his footsteps unhurried, my mom walking beside him with her hand tucked into the crook of his arm like it had always belonged there. The sight of them together still caught me off guard in the strangest way, not because it felt wrong, but because it felt inevitable, like something that had been paused and quietly set back into motion without ceremony. They rounded the final bend toward the entry, sunlight spilling in from the open doors, and then my dad stopped so abruptly my mom nearly walked into him.
He’d seen Caleb.
I felt it before I saw it, a shift in the air that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with blood and memory and old choices that never really stopped echoing. My dad straightened slowly, not stiffening, not bristling, but rising into himself in a way I recognized instinctively, the way he always did when something mattered, and he refused to meet it with anything less than his full attention.
Caleb turned at the same moment.
For a heartbeat, they simply looked at one another.
No growls. No posturing. No sharp intake of breath from either side. Just recognition.
And then something happened that made my chest tighten so suddenly, I had to fight the urge to step forward.
Caleb nodded.
He wasn’t curt or dismissive. It wasn’t the nod of a man conceding ground or acknowledging obligation. It was reverent, almost as if he were greeting someone he hadn’t expected to see standing there, but who made perfect sense once he did.
My dad inclined his head in return, just as measured, just as calm.
I swallowed hard.
Keegan’s hand found the small of my back without me asking, and I leaned into the contact more than I meant to, grateful for it, grateful for him.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” my dad said at last, his voice even, his gaze still on Caleb.
Caleb’s mouth curved into something that might’ve been a smile, if you didn’t look too closely.
“I didn’t know I would be,” he replied. “But it seems appropriate.”
My dad studied him for a long moment and nodded once. “It does.”
The simplicity of the exchange set my nerves on edge.
My mom glanced between them, her grip on my dad’s arm tightening just slightly, though her expression remained composed. She’d always been good at that, at standing steadyeven when the ground beneath her wasn’t quite what it appeared.
“You mentioned disturbances in the forests,” my dad said, getting straight to it. “Dead magic. Shadows where there shouldn’t be any. I heard some of the talk as we made our way here.”
Caleb’s expression sharpened. “You’re familiar with it.”
“I’m familiar with the feeling,” my dad replied. “It’s the same one I felt years ago, when I realized the path laid out for me wasn’t the one I could walk.”
Caleb didn’t look away. “Malore didn’t forgive you for that.”
A ripple of tension passed through me, quick and sharp.
“No,” my dad said simply. “He didn’t, but he didn’t accept me either, so I didn’t have a choice.”
The word hung between them, heavy but not explosive.
“I’m concerned,” Caleb continued carefully, “that what’s happening now may invite old resentments to surface. Not everyone has been as… restrained as I have.”
I caught the subtle emphasis, the unspoken implication beneath it, and my chest tightened again. He was worried. Not about us. About consequences.
About retribution.
“For what Malore did,” Caleb added, his gaze flicking briefly to me before returning to my dad. “And for what was lost because of it.”
