"And when he finds out I exist —"
"He will come for you." Elif's voice was steady. The steadiness of a woman who had been expecting this for two hundred years. "He will come, and he will try to make you what he wants."
The room was very quiet. On the windowsill, Melo's ears swiveled toward us, though she didn't turn from her watch.
I reached down and took Hakan's hand. His fingers were cold. The shadows stirred at the contact — not aggressively, just responding. Recognizing something.
"Then we don't let him," I said.
Elif looked at me. At our joined hands. At the shadows winding gently around my wrist without burning.
"You sound very certain," she said.
"I am certain."
Something shifted in her expression. Not warmth, not yet. But a crack in the armor. A willingness to consider that this girl holding her son's hand might be more than a liability.
Hakan's thumb traced the back of my hand. Once. Twice. Then he turned to me, and his eyes held something quieter than the pain — a question he'd been carrying since the clearing.
"Show her," he said.
I knew what he meant.
I reached up and pulled the collar of my dress aside. The mark on my sternum was faint in this light — a ring, a sun, three small stars I didn't have a name for — glowing the barest gold.
Hakan turned his right wrist toward the candlelight. The crescent — dark inside, the rim faint amethyst, one small point of gold at its heart.
We held them out to Elif together. Not asking for permission. Showing her what had already happened.
She went very still. Her eyes moved from my sternum to his wrist and back again. Slowly. Carefully. The way you readsomething you've been expecting for a long time and are still not prepared for.
She set her cup down. Stood. Crossed to us and took Hakan's wrist in one hand, turning it gently toward the light. Her thumb brushed the edge of the crescent without touching the mark itself. Then she looked at mine — didn't touch, just looked, her face very close, her breath catching once before she controlled it.
She straightened.
"How long?" she asked.
“It appeared after the night in the Sky tower. When our magic —"
“You don’t need to say anymore." She cut me off. Not unkindly. She looked between us, and the expression on her face was the most complicated thing I'd seen all night — fear and wonder and grief and something fierce and protective that hadn't been there before. "I know what these are. I've read about them. I never thought I'd see them."
"What are they?" Hakan asked.
Elif was quiet for a long moment. Then she shook her head.
"Not tonight," she said. "You've both had enough tonight. And I need to think before I speak about this, because if I'm right about what I'm looking at, it changes more than you realize." She looked at Hakan. "More than Erlik. More than bloodlines. More than either court is prepared for."
"Mother —"
"Dawn," she said, and the word carried the weight of every argument she'd ever won against two centuries of danger. "Shegoes to her father at dawn. You rest. And when I've had time to be certain about what I'm seeing, I'll tell you both. Not before."
Hakan opened his mouth. Closed it. He knew that tone. We all knew that tone — the one that said this woman had outrun a god and she was not going to be pushed by her own son.
"There's a spare blanket in the chest," Elif said. She moved toward the back room. At the curtain she paused. Looked at me one more time.
"You remind me of someone," she said. And then she was gone.
Melo shifted on the windowsill. Her tail curled around her paws, her eyes still on the street.
