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“No,” he admits. “But I know you are here now. Irritatingly alive, still better at cards than Alcott. Still banned from moving the library ladder without one of us nearby because you believe age is a suggestion.”

Alcott lifts his brows. “She is better at cards because she cheats.”

“I do not cheat,” I say automatically.

All three men look at me, the answer came quickly.

My lips tremble. “I am afraid.”

Edward moves then, slowly, giving me time to refuse. When I do not, he lowers himself to the rug beside Lazarus and rests his forehead against my knee.

“I am too,” he whispers.

That breaks me more gently than denial would have.

Alcott shifts, muttering under his breath about his knees, then sitting on the rug with undignified difficulty. Lazarus helps him off his lap as Alcott glares. Lazarus kisses his cheek, while Alcott tolerates it with thirty years of practiced annoyance. I look at them all on the floor before me.

“What if you grow tired of reminding me?”

Lazarus’s answer comes at once. “Impossible.”

“Lazarus.”

“No.” His voice is gentle but firm. “I have spent thirty years reminding Edward where he left his spectacles when they are on his head, reminding Alcott that breakfast is not optional, and reminding Thanatos that dead things belong outside. I am exceptionally practiced.”

Alcott sniffs. “You once misplaced an entire carriage.”

“It was dark.”

“It was noon.”

“There were emotional circumstances.”

Edward looks at me as he rolls his eyes at their bickering. “We will remind you, love.”

Alcott nods. “As many times as needed.”

Lazarus presses his mouth to my hand. “And when you do not know us, we will tell you again. Politely at first. Then with increasing theatrical flair. We also have your journal, darling.”

A sobbing laugh escapes me. “I hate theatrical flair.”

“You married me spiritually. That was consent to flair.”

“We never married legally.” I state.

“Details.” He waves his hand in the air.

Edward smiles faintly. “We made vows.”

We did. In blood, grief, laughter, kitchens, stages, gardens, sickrooms, libraries, and every room where one of us almost vanished but did not because the others came. I look around our library.

“I want to remember tonight,” I say.

Alcott’s face softens. “Then we shall write it down.”

Edward nods. “All of it.”

Lazarus stands slowly, wincing, and retrieves a leather-bound journal from the desk. My journal, the one they began months ago when the first episodes could no longer be dismissed as fatigue. He opens to a fresh page, dips the pen, and looks at me. “What shall I write?”