Estelle closed her eyes and let go.
The air popped and crackled. One moment, she stood there in jeans and boots, and the next her dragon filled the clearing, her scales glimmering in the afternoon light.
Margaret stumbled backward with a broken sound, one hand flying to her mouth. Her face drained of color. For a moment, Estelle thought she might run.
But she didn’t.
She stood rooted where she was, eyes wide and wet, staring as if the world had split open in front of her.
“My God,” she whispered.
Estelle held still. She let Margaret look. Let her see the truth.
Then, when the silence had stretched as far as it could, Estelle shifted back, her pulse hammering in her throat, and met Margaret’s gaze.
“That’s what Maris was,” she said quietly. “And what Adara will be.”
Margaret stared at her. “Julian knew?”
Estelle nodded. “Yes.”
Something in Margaret’s face crumpled.
“He knew,” she repeated, as though trying to fit the words inside a life that had already broken once before. “He knew and he...”
“He loved her,” Estelle said. “Exactly as she was.”
Margaret closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, tears were slipping unchecked down her face.
“And Adara will be too?” Margaret asked. “You mean she isn’t already?”
“She’s too young yet,” Estelle said. “But yes. It’s part of who she is, and that will never change. One day, she’ll shift, and when that day comes, she will need people around her who understand what they’re seeing. People who won’t fear her. People who won’t try to change her, or worse.”
“Worse.” Margaret made a strangled sound, half grief, half horror. “And all this time...”
“All this time I have been trying to keep that future safe,” Estelle said. “Not from you because I wanted to be cruel. From fear. From exposure. From the kind of attention that would ruin her life before she was old enough to understand what was happening to her.”
Margaret sank onto a fallen log as though her legs had given way beneath her.
“I thought...” She broke off and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I thought you were keeping her from me. I thought you wanted to erase us. Julian. All of it.”
“Never that,” Estelle said.
Margaret looked up at her then, wrecked and raw in a way Estelle had never seen. Not controlled. Not righteous. Just devastated.
“I loved my son,” she said. “I loved that child before she was even born. And I have spent years making myself into the thing you had to protect her from.”
The words landed hard.
Estelle did not rush to comfort her. This was not a hurt she could soften.
“You didn’t know,” she said instead. “But even so...”
Margaret flinched. “I should have behaved better toward you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
For a moment, the only sound was the wind moving through the trees.
Then Margaret drew in a shaky breath. “Tell me what you need from me.”
