I don’t cry. But it’s close.
Later that night,Mari wakes up screaming.
I bolt upright, heart pounding before my brain catches up. She’s crying before I get to the door, and my hands are already reaching for the little bottle of lavender oil in the drawer like muscle memory.
But when I step into the hallway, I see her room’s already open.
And Hardin’s there.
He’s crouched by her bed, his massive frame making the room look even smaller than it is. He’s not saying much, just rubbing her back in slow circles, his voice low and steady like the way he speaks to trees when he’s helping them heal. He says her name every so often. Tells her she’s safe. That nobody’s coming. That the scary man isn’t here, won’t get in, can’t get close.
Mari sniffles and curls into him like she’s known his voice since she was born. Her little hand curls into the fabric of his shirt.
I stay in the doorway and watch.
I don’t interrupt.
Because I think this is the first time I’ve ever really seen what safety looks like when it’s lived instead of promised. And it’s quiet, and patient, and bigger than anything I could have built on my own.
He stays with her until she’s breathing slow again, thumb still pressed to the hem of his sleeve. Then he eases back, carefully, and catches my eyes over her head.
I nod. He nods back.
When we step out of the room, neither of us says anything. We don’t need to.
The night is quiet again. But it’s stronger now.
CHAPTER 26
HARDIN
The council chamber smells like old stone and stormlight. That scent of rain before it hits, sharp and bracing, full of promise and warning both. I stand behind Krista and Mari like a wall carved out of the forest itself. Still. Silent. Watching every breath that man takes with a kind of quiet that ain’t peace.
Michael sits at the long table across from the council, all polished buttons and hollow charm. His hands are folded neatly on the lacquered wood, and there’s that damn smirk again, like this whole thing’s just a tedious formality before he’s handed what he thinks is his due. He looks like he’s already picked out his victory speech.
The chamber’s lit with spell-lamps and root candles, every flicker casting shadows that stretch longer than they should. It isn’t meant to intimidate. But it does. Magic clings to the walls here, old and sacred and slow to trust.
Sariah reads the verdict.
“We, the council of Gristlewood Hollow, acting under jurisdiction granted by the Pact of Sanctuary and bound by local and ancestral law, do hereby deny the petition of Michael Thane for joint or sole custody of Mari Thane-Johnson.”
Her voice is steady, clipped like cold steel. But it doesn’t need to be loud. The words hit hard enough on their own.
Beside me, Krista lets out a sound too soft for anyone but me to hear. Relief, maybe. Or the edge of it. Mari grips her hand tight and doesn’t let go. She’s wearing her purple sweater and her hair’s still damp from the bath this morning. I helped braid it. She told me I pulled too hard, but she smiled when she said it.
Michael doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stares ahead like he can force the moment to rewind if he holds still long enough.
Vess speaks next, even colder than Sariah. “Furthermore, Gristlewood Hollow has submitted formal documentation to the court of Mari’s birth place, Innsbrook, citing you, Michael Thane, as a material threat to the child’s well-being based on testimonial and magical evidence gathered here.”
That’s when he breaks.
The calm slips. Not all at once. It cracks, slow at first, like a mask catching fire from the inside.
He laughs.
Just once, sharp and sudden. A sound with no humor, no grace.
“You’re joking,” he says, voice pitching just slightly. “You think some backwoods coven can override state law? Do you have any idea who I am?”
