Chapter 6: Rowan

Six years.

I had turned every stone in three kingdoms, burned through favors I’d spent a decade accumulating, and she had been here. Here. In the human quarter, behind a glass door with her name stenciled in gold ink like she hadn’t dismantled two kingdoms with her disappearing act.

I stood across the street, arms folded, watching her through the window. She hadn’t noticed me yet. Too busy bent over some human’s forearm, needle in hand, brows pulled together in that focused way people get when they care too much about what they’re doing.

She looked different.

Same red hair, same dark blue eyes I’d spent more time thinking about than I’d ever admit out loud. But the way she carried herself — that was new. No slumped shoulders, no flinching, no apology written across her face for taking up space. She sat straight, said something to the human in the chair, and he laughed. She smiled after.

Something unpleasant moved through my chest.

“We should go in,” Lake said beside me.

“I know.”

“The longer we stand here the more it looks like—”

“Lake.” I cut him off.

He went quiet.

I’d played this moment out in my head a hundred different ways. What I’d say. How cold I’d be. How I’d remind her exactly what her little disappearing act had cost — the political fallout, the near war, five years of my father holding the broken alliance over my head like a blade. What it had cost me.

The black veins on my wrist had crept past my elbow now. I pulled my sleeve down.

I crossed the street.

The bell above the door chimed when I pushed it open. The human in the chair looked up. The girl at the front desk looked up. Athena did not look up.

“We’re fully booked for walk-ins today,” she said, voice even, still focused on the arm in front of her.

“I’m not here for a tattoo.”

Her hand stilled.

Slowly, she set the needle down. Slowly, she looked up.

Those dark blue eyes found mine and for exactly one second — one — something moved through them. Then it was gone, sealed over like it had never been there.

“Hm.” That was all she said.

Hm.

Six years, two kingdoms nearly at war, a curse eating me alive, and all I got was hm.

“We need to talk.” I kept my voice low. Controlled. The human in the chair was watching with wide eyes, probably picking up on something in the air even if he couldn’t name it.

“I’m with a client.” She picked the needle back up.

“Athena.”

“His name is Marco and he paid in full, so.” She didn’t look at me again.

My jaw tightened. “Outside. Five minutes.”

“I don’t have five minutes.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“It’ll be a long wait.”

Lake shifted beside me, I could feel him restraining himself. Good. The last thing I needed was him making this worse.

I pulled out the chair from the waiting area, dragged it to face her station, and sat down.

She looked at me then. Really looked. Took me in from head to toe with the kind of slow, unbothered assessment that made it clear she was deciding how much of a problem I was going to be.

“You’ve gotten dramatic.” She said finally.

“You’ve gotten difficult.”

“I was always difficult.” She turned back to Marco. “Sorry about him.”

Marco — to his credit or his absolute stupidity — shrugged and said, “No worries.”

I sat there. I waited. I watched her work, the steadiness of her hands, the quiet confidence in every movement. Fifteen minutes. She finished, wrapped his arm, walked him to the front, exchanged words with the girl at the desk, took payment.

The door closed behind Marco.

She turned.

Arms folded. Weight on one hip. Eyes flat.

“Talk.”

“Come home.”

She laughed. Actually laughed, short and humorless. “That’s your opening line? After six years?”

“I’m not here to perform. You know what’s at stake, you’ve always known. The alliance is in pieces, my father is threatening sanctions on Silverthorne, your brother has been covering for you and it’s running him dry.” I leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Come home.”

Something flickered across her face at the mention of Ethan. She buried it fast but I caught it.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I drag you.”

“Try it.” The words were quiet. Almost gentle. Which somehow made them worse.

I stood. She didn’t step back, didn’t even blink, just held my gaze with a steadiness that six years ago wasn’t there. I’d put distance between us in two seconds, close enough now that I could smell cedar and something floral underneath it. The broken bond didn’t roar the way it once had. It had been too long. But there was still something, some faint pull, like a frayed thread that hadn’t fully come loose.

“You can’t run this time.” I said.

“I didn’t run.” Her chin lifted. “I left. There’s a difference.”

“Athena—”

A door at the back of the shop swung open.

Small feet. Fast ones, hitting the floor in a chaotic rhythm.

“Mama, Dami said I couldn’t have another biscuit but I’m still hungry and she’s being mean—”

The voice stopped.

Small. A girl, couldn’t be more than five, red hair pulled into two uneven pigtails, a smear of what looked like chocolate at the corner of her mouth.

She looked at me with the most unsettling pair of silver eyes I had ever seen on a child.

My chest cracked open.

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Just stood there staring at this tiny person who was staring back at me with my eyes in her face.

Athena moved — fast, placing herself slightly in front of the girl, not blocking but present, a wall that said careful.

The girl tilted her head at me, unbothered in the way that only very small children and very dangerous people can be.

“Mama,” she said, not looking away from me. “Why does that man smell like you?”