"Even if normal means giving up the anger? The need for revenge?"
The question was gentle but pointed, and I understood what he was really asking. Could I let go of the fury that had sustained me through the worst of the grief? Could I choose healing over vengeance, building over destroying?
"The anger's not going anywhere," I said honestly. "But maybe it doesn't have to consume everything else. Maybe it can coexist with love and hope and the decision to build something beautiful instead of just tearing down what's ugly."
Evan's smile was soft around the edges, warm and proud and entirely too good for someone like me. "I think she would have liked that plan too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. She raised you to see beauty in broken things, remember? To find light in dark places. Building something beautiful from the ashes of tragedy... that sounds exactly like something Anna Harrington's son would do."
Mom had spent her life teaching me that love was stronger than fear, that hope was worth choosing even when it felt impossible.
Maybe it was time to start listening to those lessons again.
"So," I said, stepping back just enough to reach for the coffee pot, "tell me about this rebuilding plan of yours. Because if we're doing this, if we're building something together, I want to know exactly what I'm signing up for."
Evan's laugh was bright and genuine, the sound filling our kitchen with warmth that had nothing to do with the heating system and everything to do with the promise of futures worth fighting for.
33
TESTING THE HEIR
NATE
The Evernight Forest in winter was a living thing, breathing fog through ancient pines that reached toward stars too distant to care about the violence brewing beneath their branches. I adjusted the bow across my back, silver-tipped arrows whispering against each other in their quiver like promises of death yet to be delivered.
Dad walked beside me, and for the first time since Mom's funeral, he looked steady on his feet. Not whole, probably never whole again, but functional in the way that grief carved people into sharper versions of themselves.
“You sure about this?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper in air that carried sound farther than it should have.
Dad's hand moved to the silver dagger Daniel had pressed into his palm three days ago, fingers closing around leather-wrapped steel like it was a lifeline instead of a weapon. “Every Harrington man should know how to use one,” he said, echoing Daniel's words with the careful precision of someone practicing a foreign language.
We walked in silence for a few steps, boots crunching on pine needles that had frozen into brittle sculptures of themselves. Then Dad stopped, turning to face me with an expression I hadn't seen since I was little and had nightmares about monsters under my bed.
“You know what the hardest part is?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
“It's not the grief. That I expected. It's not even the anger, though there's plenty of that.” He pulled the dagger fully from its sheath, studying the blade like it held answers to questions he'd never thought to ask. “It's the guilt.”
“Dad...”
“No, let me say this.” His voice carried the weight of confession, words that had been building pressure for weeks. “I keep thinking about all the times your mother tried to tell me something was wrong. All the nights she'd wake up scared, saying she felt like something was watching the house. I told her it was just adjustment anxiety, moving to a new town.”
The admission hung in the air between us like smoke, heavy with self-recrimination that I recognized because I'd been carrying my own version of it.
“You couldn't have known,” I said, the same words people had been telling me for weeks.
“Couldn't I?” Dad's laugh was bitter around the edges. “My wife was afraid, and I dismissed her fears because they didn't fit into my understanding of how the world worked. What kind of husband does that make me?”
“The human kind.” The words came out rougher than I'd intended. “Dad, you were dealing with reality as you understood it. Mom never told us about werewolves or witches or any of this supernatural bullshit. How were you supposed to protect her from something you didn't know existed?”
Dad was quiet for a long moment, testing the dagger's weight with movements that spoke of hours spent practicing in empty rooms when he thought no one was watching. “She knew, didn't she? Deep down, some part of her knew.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she just had good instincts about danger.” I touched his arm, feeling muscles that had grown harder over the past weeks. “Either way, it's not your fault she's gone.”
“Then why does it feel like it is?”
