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“Gays don’t use the overhead light, songbird. It’s blasphemy to our sense of style and well-being. Or so I am finding in my old age.”

She had said that the very first week, Lark had tried to turn the living room light on and had kept saying it whenever Lark’s hand would rise to the light switch on the wall.

Our…

Lark would laugh, feeling instantly included, instantly accepted, instantly part of something larger than she had ever been. Larger than the church with its rigid, hypocritical rules and more welcoming than the parish with its gossip and malice.

The Crowhart family, the quintessential queerness of them, embracing her, opening up like mother’s arms wrapping around her.

One moment, they were making fresh pasta, cutting the long, thin strips of dough, yellow and pliant under her fingertips, and the next, the door was falling off its hinges, and Magnus was ambushing them.

Lark’s recollection of what had happened next was a patchwork of pain and blood. Knocked out and dragged at gunpoint, she had barely been aware of what was going on.

All she could feel between her skin and the cold metal of the gun was Victoria and the magic flowing from her as she fought to catch up, as she ran after Magnus, as she threw herself in the ocean. She also remembered how she’d tried to stay awake, to bite and claw her way to Victoria, to the woman who was more her mother than her own could ever be.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the golden glow of Victoria’s magic was gone. The Water rose, Seren’s face ashen, tears streaming down the bone-white cheeks, and then it crashed down, washing away the fear and the past. Washing away everything.

Lark could still see it, Seren’s quivering arms outstretched, shaking with exhaustion and responsibility, their crows alive and in motion. Her eyes wide, her mouth bleeding from holding back the unimaginable, all the while knowing she could not deter the Water. Understanding that holding it back from destroying the one person who threatened its survival was impossible. Magnus was the ruin. The Water was protecting its own. And Seren—dear, sweet Seren—had to let it go. Had to allow it to do what it must.

Protect.

No matter the cost.

And the cost?

The cost was the woman who had begun as a cantankerous stranger and ended up being the mother Lark had needed all of her life. The cost was Victoria, who willingly laid down her own life for Lark’s, for Lark’s future, for Lark’s peace.

She could still see her, clinging to Magnus, restraining him, her face turned to Seren, imploring her to release the ocean. Begging her to honor her sacrifice. Absolving her of all the consequences, of all the guilt.

And then, right before the Water took her, Victoria looked at Lark, who was already on her feet, dizzy and disoriented but poised to run toward her… She did not say anything. She didn’t have to make a sound. Her eyes spoke for her.

“Let me go. You have to let me go. I will always love you, songbird.”

Sitting in the starkly lit room now, Lark could not stop the tears. They came and came, her face awash with regret and gratitude.

Because no matter how Lark felt about all that had happened, Victoria had saved her. If not for her, Magnus would have killed her long before Seren and her sisters arrived on the beach.

The feeling of the ocean surrounding her, Magnus chanting the baptism prayer, the possessed look in his eyes as he spoke the words, filling them with evil, with hate, with avarice. Lark closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath.

No, there had been no surviving that. Not without Victoria’s bravery. Not without Victoria’s sacrifice.

“None of it is your fault.” Ceridwen’s words reached her as if through fog.

“Of course it’s my fault, Ceri. Had I not come to the island⁠—”

Seren’s hand tensed in hers.

“I know exactly what you’re going to say, my love. I hate that your mind goes there. But the more I think about everything, the more I remember all the clues, all the little words and hints that Victoria shared with me in the past months… Her vision⁠—”

“How about we say the quiet part out loud and acknowledge that we faced true fucking evil? Nobody’s at fault. Not Lark, who deserves the gentlest of lives. Not Seren, who did what none of us would have ever been able to do and certainly none of us should have ever been in the position to even attempt—” Rhiannon stopped her pacing and pointed a finger at Seren. Prudence stood up and lowered Rhiannon’s hand.

“She’d been slowly attempting to get me ready, Rhy.” Seren sighed, her eyes closed, her free hand covering her mouth. “I didn’t see it. Didn’t want to give any credence to what she had been trying to say and yet… Once I saw what was waiting for me at the lagoon, I knew. She had been ready for that moment, and either I was going to be, or we’d never be here having this conversation.”

“Well, we shouldn’t be.”

Rhiannon threw her hands in the air and paced away from the row of chairs, kicking the closest one to her, then wincing in pain.

“Rhy—”