LOGIN~Selene's POV~Kael asks to speak with her privately after the Monday archive session, waiting deliberately until the room has emptied and Caden has stepped out into the corridor to take an urgent call from the eastern patrol captain, and something in Kael's manner, unhurried but clearly deliberate, tells her before he even speaks that this particular conversation has been prepared in advance rather than arriving to him spontaneously."I want to say something, and I want to say it plainly, because I think you deserve plainness more than most people I've had the privilege of working with," he says, setting down the fragment he has been reviewing with careful, deliberate precision. "I've noticed, these past months, that I look forward to these sessions more than the archive work alone can fully account for on its own merits. I think you've noticed it too, in your own way. I don't intend to act on it, and I want to be entirely clear about that from the outset. I only think it's more hone
~Caden's POV~They tell the twins first, on a Sunday morning, all four of them gathered in the sitting room with the fire lit against the early chill that has settled over Cresthaven this week, Lior perched on the arm of the sofa in the position he has favored since he decided, sometime in the last month, that the arm was structurally sound enough to trust his full weight, Asha curled into the cushions beside her mother with the particular stillness she brings to moments she has already, somehow, half anticipated before anyone has said a word."You're going to have a brother or a sister," Selene says, plainly, the way she has always spoken to them, without the elevated register some parents reach for with children who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding a direct sentence delivered honestly.Lior's reaction arrives immediately and at considerable volume, a full accounting of everything he intends the new sibling to be told about, starting with the beetle in the garden he ha
~Caden's POV~They tell the twins first, on a Sunday morning, all four of them gathered in the sitting room with the fire lit against the early chill that has settled over Cresthaven this week, Lior perched on the arm of the sofa in the position he has favored since he decided, sometime in the last month, that the arm was structurally sound enough to trust his full weight, Asha curled into the cushions beside her mother with the particular stillness she brings to moments she has already, somehow, half anticipated before anyone has said a word."You're going to have a brother or a sister," Selene says, plainly, the way she has always spoken to them, without the elevated register some parents reach for with children who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding a direct sentence delivered honestly.Lior's reaction arrives immediately and at considerable volume, a full accounting of everything he intends the new sibling to be told about, starting with the beetle in the garden he ha
~Caden's POV~He asks Vera for a private meeting on Monday, before the working session, and she receives him in her own office rather than the council chamber, the narrow windows letting in the pale morning light at the angle Caden has always associated with formal proceedings rather than quiet conversation."You want to talk about Isolde Rourke," Vera says, before he has fully finished sitting down, and he understands, from the specific certainty in her voice, that Selene has already spoken with her, at least in part."Selene told you.""Selene told me about a flare with no lunar trigger, days ago, and asked nothing further of me beyond my discretion, which she already had." Vera folds her hands on the desk. "She has not spoken to me about Isolde. I have simply been paying attention, which is the entire function of my position on this council, and I would be a poor elder if six weeks of a talented strategist's behavior had escaped my notice entirely.""What have you noticed.""That s
~Selene's POV~Rhys reports back on Friday, finding her in the east wing before the twins are fully awake, his expression carrying the particular flatness he brings to information he has decided is serious enough not to soften."The Westmere liaison confirmed it in writing," he says, setting a single printed page on the table between them. "An email, dated eleven days ago, in which Isolde tells him directly that Selene has, quote, 'stepped back from day-to-day involvement to focus on family matters,' and that he should route time-sensitive items through her going forward rather than waiting on Selene's schedule."Selene reads the line twice.It is precise in exactly the way she has come to expect, worded carefully enough to sound like an accommodation rather than an exclusion, the kind of sentence that would read, to anyone not already watching for the pattern, as simple professional courtesy between colleagues managing a busy principal's calendar."He didn't think to mention this to
~Caden's POV~They sit in the study, the same room where the light had once burned late without him thinking twice about who saw it, and this time all three of them are inside it together, Rhys in the chair across from the desk, Selene beside Caden rather than across from him, her notebook open on the surface between them."Start from the beginning," he says.She does, plainly, without embellishment, reading from the private ledger she has kept since a compliment about her instincts landed wrong five weeks ago. The study door, the held look through the gap. The Westmere summary, signed before she had seen it, structured to discourage the full briefing she was owed. The framework Isolde claimed to have developed independently, on a timeline that does not survive close comparison with Bria and Nessa's dated notes. The open-session proposal today, offered as generosity, aimed at taking lead on a workstream Selene had personally built from nothing.Caden listens to all of it without inter
~Selene’s POV~The rejection is scheduled for nine o'clock.I know because Caden's message at six in the morning is clinical and precise, as if he is confirming a conference call.Pack Hall, third floor, nine a.m. Come alone.My mother reads the message over my shoulder and says nothing. She presse
~Selene’s POV~I hang up.I don't think about it — my thumb simply moves and the call ends and I stand on the pavement outside the flower stall with my heart hammering so loud I can hear it in my temples.Three seconds later, she calls again.I watch the screen. Let it ring. Let it ring. Let it rin
~Selene’s POV~I don't sleep.I lie on my side of the bed — our bed — and stare at the ceiling while Caden's side remains cold and untouched. I heard him leave again at midnight, the front door closing with a finality that vibrated through the walls.I don't ask myself where he went.I already know
~Selene’s POV~"Congratulations, Luna Ashford. You're going to be a mother."Dr. Priya Noel's voice is still ringing in my ears as I step out of the private clinic and into the pale afternoon light.I stop on the pavement, pressing one hand flat against the cold stone wall to steady myself, the oth







