Thorne swears quietly.
Kael’s mouth falls open.
Dagan’s grip on me tightens, then eases as he exhales slow.
“He is…” Kael starts.
“Small,” Thorne finishes gruffly.
“Perfect,” Dagan says.
“Exactly,” Jules declares, smug and wrecked and gorgeous, cradling Marcel like he’s the only thing that exists. “Everyone, meet Marcel Aurelion Stormwing. You can bow later. I’m busy.”
Alaric gives a broken laugh and bends to kiss her forehead.
“I am so proud of you,” he whispers. “Both of you.”
Clarisse starts bustling around again, shooing people back to give the new family room.
She pours steaming cups of tea laced with herbal remedies, insists Jules drink something sweet and restorative, orders Alaric to sit down before he keels over.
I ask her quietly to make sure they have fresh linens, extra blankets, whatever they need.
“Of course, Lady Alina,” Clarisse says with a wink. “You’ve a knack for giving orders. You fit in here, you know. Like a true Lady of the house.”
Maybe I do, I think.
The thought settles in my chest like a stone in exactly the right place.
Dagan pulls me close as the room shifts into a softer kind of chaos—Phoebe cooing over the baby, Delia double-checking Jules’ vitals, Thorne pretending not to be misty-eyed, Kael standing guard by the door like a human (Demon Lord?) security system.
“You did this,” Dagan murmurs against my hair.
I snort. “Pretty sure Jules and Alaric had something to do with it.”
“You insisted they take this chamber,” he says. “With the root-ward lines wrapped close, with the moonlight shaft properly aligned. You called for Clarisse. You calmed the stone when it quaked at her pain.”
He’s not wrong.
The Barrow did feel jittery.
The walls tightened every time Jules cried out, foundations hummed with worry.
I didn’t even realize I was sending soothing pulses through the floors until Delia shot me a look and nodded, like, yeah, keep doing that.
“Okay, maybe I helped a little,” I mutter.
Dagan’s thumb strokes over my hip, grounding me more than the castle itself.
“You belong here,” he says quietly. “The Marches know it. The Barrow knows it.”
“And you?” I ask because I’m a disaster and can’t help myself.
His answer is immediate.
“I have known it since the first moment you cursed at a fault line,” he says dryly.
I huff out a laugh.
