Ina intercepted it mid-sip. Tea sloshed onto the table as she took it from him. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Dad muttered something under his breath and tried to stand without putting weight on his injured leg. His face tightened and he hissed between his teeth. “Painkillers are a bloody lie.”
Malachi sprang to his feet, ignoring the sharp protest in his ribs as he moved. He shoved his chair back under the table and offered his arm. Dad leaned heavily onto him, heavier than Malachi expected.
Bed sounded like heaven. He could sleep for the rest of the summer holidays and still wake up tired.
Then—
Crash.
The sound tore through the quiet kitchen. Plastic thudding against stone, lids banging. The unmissable clatter of the wheelie bins being knocked over.
Malachi froze. His pulse jumped, but he didn’t bolt. He didn’t flinch—he just listened.
Dad went rigid beside him, his grip tightening on Malachi’s arm. Ina’s head snapped towards the door, every line of her body pulling taut.
For one suspended beat, none of them moved.
Ina’s knife was in her hand before Malachi even registered the movement.
“Stay here.” She barked, already halfway to the door.
Before Malachi could argue—before he could even draw breath—she was gone, the backdoor banging open behind her.
Chapter 27
Ina
Ina sprinted into the garden with nothing but her knife to defend her family and the certainty that she would use it.
Dawn mist clung low to the ground, cold and slick against her boots. The rising sun dragged long shadows across the grass, stretching them into something deceptive and dangerous. Every corner of the garden was a potential hiding place. Ina scanned them all without breaking stride.
If the boathouse had been a lie—if the Selkie had allies, another shoal waiting to finish what had been started—they wouldn’t leave Riverside alive.
Letting them live was a mistake. She’d known it the second Archie ordered her to lower her weapon. Tonight, monsters had learned they could kill and walk away.
Ina didn’t like bloodshed, but liking it had nothing to do with necessity. Sometimes violence was the cost of keeping families alive long enough to grow old. Archie clung to hope. Malachi reached for understanding. But Ina needed certainty. Time would tell which of them was right.
Her grip tightened on the knife as she moved deeper into the garden, breath even, steps light. Her muscles ached for a long, hot soak in a bath, but she was ready to fight.
If Archie’s choice had already come back to haunt them, if his mercy was about to send Ina to her grave, she would take as many as she could with her.
The thought of Daddy’s journal hit hard and sudden. She should’ve told Archie. Daddy was his father too. He had just as much right to that knowledge—about the Otherworld and their family—even if Ina had spent the last forty years being too afraid to read it.
The journal stayed hidden because as long as she didn’t open it, Daddy wasn’t truly gone. Reading it would mean accepting his death. And even after all this time, Ina wasn’t about to give up hope.
She slowed as mist rolled in from the river, thickening around her, swallowing sound and distance.
A chill crept down her spine. If she died here, in her own backyard, Archie and Malachi would be left to pick up the pieces without her. And they’d make a mess of it. Archie with his mercy. Malachi with his questions. They’d walk straight into trouble believing the world could be reasoned with.
And Tilly?—
Ina’s chest tightened. She couldn’t leave Tilly. They’d been friends all their lives—Ina couldn’t remember life without her. They’d been there for each other through thick and thin. They’d spend each Christmas clinging to each other, drinking far too many Bloody Marys, pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist while they mourned their losses side by side. The thought of Tilly alone at Christmas, truly alone, twisted something ugly and panicked in Ina’s gut.
She wouldn’t become another empty chair. Another absence no one knew how to talk about.
Ina exhaled slowly and pushed the thoughts aside with brutal efficiency. Her knife tilted slightly as she moved deeper into the shadows, panic finally locked down where it belonged. Nothing was taking her family tonight.
