“Yeah,” he says quietly. “We’ll figure it out.”
I don’t know where this trail leads. I don’t know what my grandmother hid, or why she chose riddles over answers.
But I’m not standing at the edge of it alone anymore.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Wyatt
Friday
The kitchen table has become a study in contradictions.
Beekeeping journals and handwritten letters spread between mugs of cooling tea, three different highlighters, and the sticky remains of a six-year-old’s snack.
Jesse’s twins are sprawled on the floor with crayons and a notebook, Marshall’s leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, supervising, and Abilene is perched at the table with her sleeves rolled up, hair escaping its braid in soft rebellion, eyes bright with that particular focus she gets when she’s thinking deeply.
I’m sitting cross-legged on a chair that was not designed for this position, squinting at a margin note written decades ago, feeling… absurdly content.
This is what gets me.
Not the carnage. Not the mystery.
The togetherness.
“Okay,” Jesse says, tapping the paper with a pen he’s already chewed the cap off of. “Let’s recap. We’ve got bees. Queens. Workers. Sealing things. Fire. And the word ‘jewel’ thatapparently does not mean jewel. Which honestly feels like a betrayal.”
Abilene smiles faintly. “Grandma liked layers.”
Marshall snorts. “That’s one word for it.”
I glance around the room, at the way no one’s posturing or rushing or trying to be the smartest person in it.
Marshall’s calming the energy just by being here. Jesse’s cracking jokes to keep things from getting too heavy. Abilene’s steadying herself by letting the work happen slowly.
And somehow, without anyone naming it, we’ve slipped into a rhythm.
“This line keeps bothering me,” I say, tapping the margin with my finger. “‘Where the workers rest, the queen keeps her truth.’ Is that a standard beekeeping phrase?”
Abilene shakes her head. “No. It sounds… poetic. Like she meant it sideways.”
“Everything about this woman is sideways,” Jesse mutters. “I respect it. I resent it.”
Marshall tilts his head. “Where do workers rest?”
“In hives,” Jesse says immediately. Then pauses. “Or… barns. Or break rooms. Or?—”
“The couch,” Eliza supplies helpfully from the floor.
Jesse points at him. “See? She gets it.”
“Places of routine,” I add. “Places no one questions.”
Jesse brightens. “Oh! Like the feed room. Or the?—”
“The honey house,” Abilene says softly.
We all look at her.
