Mag-log inChapter 449SILVIA"Why," he said, careful, the way he always got when that particular subject came up, which wasn't often, not anymore, not after so many years."I don't know," I said, and that was true—I genuinely didn't know, couldn't trace the thread that connected the thought to whatever I'd actually been looking at. "Standing here, looking at all these pictures. I just felt it. That same ache. The one I get sometimes, out of nowhere, that I've always attributed to her."Xena. My daughter. Lost so many years ago now, in circumstances I still couldn't think about too directly without my chest tightening, some old grief that had never fully healed, just scarred over thick enough to bear weight most days."I still miss her too," Samuel said quietly, pulling me a little closer against his side. "It doesn't surprise me that it comes up sometimes, unprompted. Grief does that. Sneaks up when you least expect it.""It's strange, though," I said. "It doesn't feel like it usually does, whe
Chapter 448SILVIAI set my tea down on the little table Samuel had placed at the end of the hallway specifically because he knew I'd stand here brooding some mornings and thought I ought to have somewhere to put a cup down while I did it, and I studied that last photograph for a long, long moment."You're doing the thing again," Samuel said, coming up behind me, his voice still rough with sleep. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed a kiss to my temple, looking at the wall with me."What thing," I said, though I knew perfectly well what thing."The wall thing," he said. "Standing here at six in the morning working yourself into a state before you've even had breakfast.""I'm not working myself into a state," I said, which was, strictly speaking, a lie, and Samuel's raised eyebrow told me he knew it too."You're looking at Ollie's pictures," he said. "You do this most mornings, you know. I don't think you notice you're doing it.""Someone has to notice," I said. "Look at him,
Chapter 447SILVIAThe hallway outside our kitchen had become something of a shrine over the years, though I never would have called it that out loud. Samuel teased me about it sometimes, the way he teased me about most things I cared for too openly—said I was running a small museum instead of a house, said one day we'd need to knock through to the next room just to fit more frames.I told him a grandmother was entitled to her indulgences, and he never argued the point too hard, mostly because half the photographs lining that hallway had been taken by him in the first place.I stood in front of it now, a cup of tea cooling in my hand, doing what I did most mornings before the house properly woke—walking the length of it slowly, looking at each frame the way you might walk through a garden checking on things you'd planted, making sure they were still there, still whole.The photographs started at the far end, closest to the kitchen, with Ollie as a baby. Red-faced and furious in the ve
Chapter 446SOPHIAInstead he was the one I understood least. The one whose silences I couldn't translate, whose moods I couldn't predict, whose affection—if he felt any for me at all, and some ugly, frightened part of me genuinely wondered—never seemed to find its way toward the surface where I could see it.I hated the thought that followed, hated it enough that I pushed it away three separate times before it finally settled in and refused to leave.Was there something wrong with me? Some flaw in how I loved him, some deficiency he could sense even if I couldn't name it myself? Children were perceptive in ways adults liked to pretend they weren't. What if Ollie had simply figured out, somewhere along the way, before he even had words for it, that the love I offered him came out slightly wrong—warm enough to pass, but missing something essential underneath, something Riley and Lake got without even having to ask for it.I thought about the murmuring in the classroom. He was the heir
Chapter 445SOPHIAMarcus Webb's mother had built an elaborate model of the pack's memorial garden with her son, the two of them clearly delighted with each other, finishing each other's sentences as they described the little details they'd added. Another pair had done the lake where the pack held summer gatherings, complete with tiny paper boats. Everyone seemed so comfortable, so obviously connected to the child beside them, and I sat there with my hands folded in my lap trying not to feel the specific, hollow ache of comparison.When it was our turn, Ollie and I stood at the front together, our lopsided diorama between us, and I did most of the talking. He answered the two questions the teacher asked him directly with short, correct answers, and then stood there silently while I explained the rest, filling the space he left with words that felt increasingly desperate the longer I talked.I heard the murmuring before we'd even sat back down.It wasn't loud. It wasn't meant for me to
Chapter 444SOPHIAThe parent-child project had seemed like such a simple idea when the flyer came home in Ollie's backpack three weeks ago. Build something together, the assignment read, in careful, encouraging teacher handwriting. A model, a diorama, anything that represents a place your family loves. Presented in class, judged not on skill but on collaboration.I should have known collaboration was exactly the word that would trip us up.I picked Ollie for the project because I told myself it made sense—Riley had science fair, Lake had a dozen other things pulling at his attention, and Ollie so rarely got anything that was just his, just ours, without his brothers folded into the mix somehow. I told myself I was being thoughtful. Intentional. A good mother making space for the son who needed more of it.I don't think I was wrong about that. I just think I was catastrophically unprepared for how badly I'd fail at actually filling the space once I'd made it.We decided on a diorama o
Chapter 317: LUMINA"How bad do you think this is going to be?" he asked quietly."I don't know," I admitted. "But I think we're about to find out exactly where your parents stand on everything. The changes, the boys, our leadership... all of it.""And if they're hostile? If they've sided with th
Chapter 311: Buried TruthsZADE"How did things go with Simon?" Lyn asked, clearly desperate to change the subject."Productively," I said, moving into the room and letting the door close behind Rivers and me. "We established some boundaries about interfering with pack stability and threatening my
Chapter 302: Figuring Out A PlanOLLIEThat's a terrible idea," I interrupted. "You can't just randomly portal into places where dangerous ancient creatures might be hanging out. What if you open a portal right in the middle of them? What if they grab you and pull you through before you can close i
Chapter 265; Parting JokesXENOISThe morning air carried a crispness that reminded me autumn was settling in properly now, the kind of cold that made breath visible and promised frost by week's end. I stood by our SUV, watching Lumina finish loading the last of our bags while trying not to think







