He picked the violin back up. For a moment I thought he might play instead of answer—retreat into music the way he used to retreat into performance. The old Keane would have filled the silence, offered an exit, made it easier for him to deflect.
I’d learned better.
He set it down again.
Honestly? He turned the word over like he was testing whether it was true. Yes. Mostly. His thumb pressed into the neck of the violin, hard enough to whiten the skin at the joint, before releasing. I keep waiting to feel something more. Something… larger. Like it should have cracked something open. He paused. It didn’t. I’m not sure if that means I’ve actually healed or if I buried it too well to find.
Echo shifted colors softly on the windowsill. I watched her instead of him, giving Elio the privacy of not being observed.
Either way, Elio said, quieter. They can’t hurt anyone anymore. That’s what matters.
I sat beside him, our shoulders close but not quite touching.
Their research is archived, I said. Not destroyed.
Because it helps us understand how it happened. His voice had steadied into something that was genuine, not performed. I knew the difference now—the careful precision that meant he was choosing to mean what he said rather than crafting what sounded right. They taught me to deceive for control. I use it now to reveal truth. He almost smiled. I’ll take that.
Not closure, exactly. But something real—the kind of resolution that didn’t require a feeling to arrive on schedule.
I thought about saying that, but then I decided he already knew.
That was resolution—not perfect, not painless, but honest. And from Elio, honesty had always cost more than anything else.
We sat in companionable silence, watching dust motes drift through the sunlight. Outside, students crossed the quad, laughing, arguing, and just existing in ways we never could have in our first months at Wickem. The pressure of being heirs hadn’t disappeared, but we’d learned to carry it differently.
Cyrus is planning some kind of elaborate dinner thing, Elio said eventually, a hint of his old mischief creeping into his voice. Something about ‘celebrating victories properly.’ I think he’s been reading more of those leadership books.
I felt my lips quirk up. Did he try to schedule it?
Color-coded agenda and everything. Elio’s eyes gleamed. Marigold told him we’re not his troops and he can’t court martial us for being late.
How’d he take that?
Turned bright red and mumbled something about ‘suggesting optimal timing for group cohesion.’ Elio grinned fully now. Then she kissed him, and he forgot how to form complete sentences.
The image made something warm settle in my chest. Us, being normal. Being happy. Being the family we’d chosen instead of the heirs we’d been forced to become.
I’ll be there, I said.
I know. Elio bumped his shoulder against mine, gentle and grounding. You’re always there now.
He was right. I was.
The old version of me—the one who’d watched Marigold through portals because actually talking to her felt too dangerous, who’d measured every word to Uncle’s exacting standards, who’d believed attachment was a weakness to be eliminated—that Keane would barely recognize what I’d become.
But standing here, with my found family and my teaching and my magic clean and my own, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I’d learned the most important lesson—the one that had saved all of us in the end. Some things were worth the risk of losing.
And the only way to keep them was to hold them gently.
Wisp curled up beside me, and outside the window, Wickem Academy stretched toward the mountains, full of students learning to harmonize instead of dominate.
Full of possibilities I’d helped build. Full of tomorrow.
37
Marigold
