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His hand moved. He did not decide for it to. It came up slowly, not quite reaching her face, and stopped with his knuckle perhaps two inches from her jaw.

Her chin came up. A fraction. Her eyes held his.

The distance between his hand and her cheek was not large.

“Papa…” The voice came from the upper landing, making both of them jump apart as though electrocuted, and the moment was instantly shattered.

They both looked up to see Eloise standing at the top of the stairs in her white nightgown, her arms folded around herself, hair loose and feet bare on the cold floor. Her eyes were too bright, and her lower lip was pressed flat.

“I had a nightmare,” she said.

They were both already moving before either of them even decided to do so.

Adam swooped her up into his arms, one arm beneath her knees, her head against his shoulder. She pressed her face into his coat without speaking, her arms tight around his neck.

Juliet followed behind him, and he could feel her restlessness, like pinpricks against the back of his neck.

When they got to Eloise’s room, he set her down in her bed, and she drew her knees to her chest, pulling the coverlet up around them.

Juliet sat beside her on the bed, smoothing the edge of the coverlet at Eloise’s knee.

“Was it the whole of the water,” Juliet said, “or only the part you couldn’t see the bottom of?”

Eloise thought about this. “Mostly the bottom part,” she said, at last. “The rest was just water.”

“The dark things always go for what you cannot see. That is their one advantage.”

Eloise considered this, looking at the ceiling. Then she spoke, “Miss Green says I ought to think of something pleasant before I sleep. She says it crowds out the bad things.” A pause. “She thinks about kittens.”

“Does it work for her?” Juliet asked.

“I’ve no idea. She sleeps very quietly, but that might simply be that she goes to bed before nine.”

Adam, from the chair he had drawn closer to the hearth, heard his daughter say this, and the tightness in his chest eased by a degree.

Eloise turned her head toward him. “Papa. Read us the kingdom story.”

“You have the kingdom story memorized,” he said.

“I like how you say the ending.” She looked at the bookshelf as though the matter were resolved.

He got the book—the green spine, third from the left, the same volume in the same place it had been for three years—and sat on the edge of her bed. She arranged herself against Juliet’s side, the coverlet to her waist.

“From the beginning?” he asked.

“From where they see the hill from the valley.” She closed her eyes.

He found the page and began reading.

He read slowly, the way she always wanted. No rushing the parts where the traveler was afraid, no hurrying the parts where the valley opened out into light. Eloise’s breathing evened out long before the third page. He continued anyway, because on his left he could hear that Juliet was still awake, her breathing different from Eloise’s—slower than it had been in the entrance hall, but not yet in full sleep.

He read through the traveler reaching the gates, and through the girl with the silver lantern leading him across the river.

And that was when he looked up.

Eloise was entirely still, slack and warm against Juliet’s side. Juliet’s head had gone back a few degrees against the headboard, her lips parted, and her fingers resting over Eloise’s hand, unmoving. Her hair had come partly loose at the back, a curl lying against her collar.

Heart pounding in his throat at the sight, Adam closed the book without looking and sat there in the quiet for a moment, just taking them in.