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She flinched.

“All roads lead to the same place now,” I said. “The only choice I have left is whether one of them leads through Henry.”

Illyria reached for my hand. This time, I let her take it.

“I won’t let anyone near him.”

“Promise me. Not as Salvatore’s sister. Not as Maxim Fedorov’s wife. Promise me as one mother to another: no matter what happens to me, no matter what truth comes out, and no matter who claims his blood gives them a right to him, you will protect our son.”

Our son.

The words settled between us without challenge.

Illyria tightened both hands around mine. “I promise. They will have to bury me before they touch him.”

“No.” I shook my head fiercely. “Don’t die for him if living will protect him better. He has lost enough people who loved him. Be ruthless. Lie to him if the truth puts him in danger. Take him somewhere no one knows his name. Let him hate you if hatred keeps him alive, but live long enough for him to understand why.”

Illyria bowed her head over our joined hands, crying without sound. “I promise I will live for him.”

That was the vow I needed. Death was easy to offer when love made sacrifice sound noble. Living required waking each morning and carrying every choice forward.

“And when the time is right,” she said, lifting her tear-stained face, “Henry will know everything. He will know his father died protecting innocent people. He will know his mother gave him up because keeping him would have killed him. He will know you watched over him even when you couldn’t touch him.”

My breath shuddered.

“He’ll be proud to call you Mom,” Illyria whispered. “I swear that to you too.”

I closed my eyes because there were some mercies too painful to receive while looking at the person offering them.

“I forgive you,” I said. “For blaming me. For hating me. For every time you needed to believe I didn’t love him so you could love him without guilt.”

Illyria pulled me into her arms.

For one suspended moment, we held each other beside the child who had made mothers of us both. There was no victor in the embrace and no rightful claim being surrendered. She was the mother who had moved heaven and earth to build a fortress around him. I was the mother who had learned that my absence was the only wall strong enough to protect him.

Both kinds of love had cost us. Only one had been witnessed.

When we separated, Illyria wiped her face and glanced toward the bed. “Go to him.”

Fear returned so quickly my knees weakened. “What if he wakes?”

“Then he’ll see someone who loves him. There are worse things for a child to wake to.”

I crossed the room before courage could abandon me. Each step felt like entering a church after losing faith. I lowered myself onto the edge of the mattress and studied the face I had created with the man I loved.

Henry’s eyelashes rested dark against his cheeks. A faint scar marked his chin, evidence of an injury I hadn’t witnessed. His hand lay open beside the pillow, larger than the infant hand that had once closed around one of my fingers and made leaving him seem impossible.

I placed my hand carefully beneath his.

His fingers curled around mine in his sleep.

The contact broke me without sound. Tears slipped from my face and darkened the blanket while I sat perfectly still, afraid even grief might wake him. His palm was warm. His grip was loose and trusting. For seven years, I had tried to remember the last time I held him, never imagining goodbye might return as something as small as a sleeping child’s hand.

I bent and pressed my lips against his hair.

“I love you,” I whispered. “Your daddy loved you too. Everything we did was for you, even the things that hurt. Especially those.”

Henry shifted toward me. For one impossible second, I imagined his body remembered mine. Then he sighed and settled, his fingers still holding on.