Ari’s eyes widened so completely that, for one breathless moment, the fear seemed to leave her altogether. The tiny lights scattered across the earth reflected in her dark eyes, turning them silver at the edges.
“Esme,” she whispered, squeezing her sister’s hand. “She made stars.”
Esme stared at the path, then at the fox. Then back at the path again. She had always been the quieter of the two. The one who watched before she believed. The one who listened to the strange little murmurs in walls and empty rooms, who sometimes woke knowing things Remy had never told her. But this required no caution. No frightened suspicion. Something in her recognized Asteria before she understood what recognition meant. Not her name. Not her shape. Something deeper. The feeling of warmth beneath a locked door. The sense of hearing a song she had somehow known before it began.
“We didn’t chase a rabbit,” Esme admitted, her voice small with embarrassment.
Ari looked at her. “We did a little.”
Ari turned back toward Asteria with great seriousness. “It did.”
Esme nodded solemnly beside her. “And it looked at us.”
This, apparently, had been reason enough to abandon every warning their father had ever given them about leaving the garden, crossing the old stone boundary, or wandering beyond the trees without an adult. The warnings had been numerous. Very detailed. Some had included drawings. Remy believed visual demonstrations added weight to a threat.
Ari stepped carefully onto the silver path. The starlight brightened beneath the toe of her boot. She gasped and bounced once, nearly dragging Esme off balance.
“It is magic,” Esme corrected.
Asteria’s dark tail brushed against the leaves as the girls fell into place beside her, close enough that Ari’s hand occasionally drifted down to touch the fox’s back, reassuring herself that she was still there. The forest no longer seemed quite so enormous. The shadows no longer looked like they were reaching. Each tiny spark illuminated the roots before their feet and turned the cold dusk into something soft and enchanted.
Ari began talking first. She always did.
“Our papa does magic too.”
Esme glanced toward her. “We are not supposed to tell people.”
Ari looked down at Asteria as though requesting support in a very serious legal matter. “You’re not people, are you?”
Before Asteria could answer, Ari continued with all the confidence of someone who had already decided the outcome. “Our papa is a warlock.”
Esme sighed. The sound was remarkably tired for someone so small. “He says we are not supposed to announce it.”
“He only means strangers.”
Ari’s fingers disappeared into the soft fur at Asteria’s shoulder. “She found us.”
That settled it in Ari’s mind. Anyone who found you when you were lost had skipped several stages of acquaintance and become important immediately.
Esme appeared to consider this. Her gaze remained fixed on Asteria. Not suspicious. Curious. Quietly enchanted.
“Our papa makes wards,” she said after a moment, evidently deciding that if Ari had already exposed the family’s largest secret, there was little point protecting the smaller ones. “They are all over the house.”
“You are not supposed to lift those.”
Ari ignored her. “He makes things explode when he gets angry.”
Esme lowered her voice. “He can hear lies.”
“He knows when you eat biscuits before dinner.”
“That is because you tell him.”
“You do it with your face.”
Ari demonstrated Esme’s allegedly treacherous expression by widening her eyes and pursing her mouth.
Esme frowned. “I do not look like that.”
Their voices filled the forest as they walked. Small. Bright. Safe again.
They told Asteria about the kitchen that always smelled of herbs, bread, and something burnt because Remy frequently became distracted in the middle of cooking. They told her about the cupboard they were forbidden to open. Ari immediately explained what was inside it. Three jars of grave soil. Two bundles of dried rosemary. A black knife wrapped in red thread. And sweets Remy believed they did not know about.
They told her about the wards on their windows and the charms sewn into their coats. About the way the kettle screamed when something dangerous approached the house. About Papa’s habit of falling asleep at the kitchen table with a book beneath his cheek. About how he said he did not snore. About how he absolutely did.
“He is tired,” Esme corrected gently.
That silenced Ari for a moment. Then she looked down at Asteria. “He makes pancakes shaped like moons.”
“Some of them look like potatoes.”
“You do not know what moons taste like.”
Ari frowned at this unnecessary limitation of imagination. “They taste like his pancakes.”
Esme’s hand loosened in her sister’s as the trees began to thin. The air changed first. Wood smoke drifted between the trunks. Then rosemary. Then the warm smell of bread. Home.
A soft golden light glowed beyond the last line of trees, spilling from the windows of a crooked little house set behind a low stone wall. Its roof was dark with moss. Bundles of drying herbs hung beneath the eaves. Sigils had been carved into the gatepost so densely that the wood beneath them could barely be seen.
Ari’s entire face lit up. “That’s ours.”
She hurried ahead two steps, then stopped and looked back at Asteria. The joy shifted. Concern touched her features.
Esme nodded immediately. “You can stay for dinner.”
Esme paused. “The bread might be hard.”
Ari crouched beside Asteria, her small hands cupping either side of the fox’s face with all the tenderness of someone handling treasure. “You can sleep in our room.”
Esme came closer. “We have blankets.”
“And Papa will make you a charm.”
“He makes charms for everything,” Esme explained. “Even shoes.”
Ari nodded. “My boots are protected from demons.”
“He might have thought it.”
Asteria had barely stepped beyond the tree line when a man’s voice carried across the yard.
The voice came again, sharper this time. Not angry. Afraid.
Ari’s shoulders rose toward her ears. Esme’s hand found hers again.
Remy stood on the back step with a wooden spoon in one hand and an expression that suggested he had been seconds away from tearing the forest apart. His dark hair was disordered. The sleeves of his shirt had been shoved roughly to his elbows, revealing several faded sigils winding around one forearm. There was flour on his cheek, a streak of it near his jaw, and something dark simmering in the pot behind him.
The yard around the house had become restless. The protective markings along the stone wall glowed faintly. Wind moved through the grass despite the stillness of the trees.
He had called them for dinner once. Then twice. On the third attempt, he had checked the sitting room, the stairs, beneath the table, and the small cupboard Ariana had once climbed into because she believed it contained another world. By the fourth, his heart had begun trying to break through his ribs.
Then he saw them. Two little shapes emerging from the forest. Alive. Unhurt. Holding hands. Relief struck him so violently that for half a second, he forgot how to stand.
“There you are.” The words came out rougher than he intended. Ariana smiled with immediate, nervous brightness. “Papa.” Remy stepped down into the yard. “What did I say about the woods?” “We did not go very far,” Ari said. Esme looked at the silver trail still glowing behind them. “We went very far.”
Ari stared at her in betrayal.
Remy opened his mouth. Then stopped.
Something pulled beneath his ribs. Not pain. Not exactly. A thread. Thin at first. Barely there. A soft tightening somewhere deeper than muscle, deeper than bone, somewhere magic lived before it became spell or blood or breath.
His grip closed around the spoon. The yard blurred at the edges.
For one terrible instant, he was years younger. A kitchen. Blue eyes. Cream-coloured fur slipping across a windowsill. A bond tearing one thread at a time.
His magic reacted before his mind did. Every ward along the house flared gold. The spoon snapped in his hand.
Esme did not. Her eyes remained fixed on him.
Remy’s breath caught. The pull came again. Stronger. Warm. Ancient. Alive.
Panic opened inside him with all the subtlety of a trapdoor.
Kate had returned. The thought arrived fully formed and vicious. She had come back. After all this time. After leaving him with two newborn daughters and a house full of silence. After tearing the bond apart so violently he had spent months waking with blood beneath his fingernails from clawing at his own chest in his sleep.
She had come back. For what? The girls? Him? To finish something she had abandoned?
Remy’s magic rose around him. The air thickened. The flour on his cheek looked almost absurd against the sudden, dangerous stillness of his face.
He searched the tree line. Every shadow. Every branch. Every movement between the leaves.
But he knew Kate’s magic. He knew it the way he knew his own pulse. He would have recognized the particular ache of her presence even through death.
He had believed so. For years, he had told himself he would know if the remnants of the bond ever stirred. That nothing connected to her could approach his daughters without every scar inside him opening at once.
This did not feel like Kate.
The realization came slowly. Unwillingly.
The pull was familiar in shape but not in touch. It did not scrape over the old wound. It moved beside it. Fresh. Unformed. Silver where Kate had always felt blue. Cool where she had been sharp.
There was no memory inside it. No accusation. No resentment. Only invitation. Remy hated that most of all.
His gaze dropped. There, beside his daughters, stood a small black fox. Her coat caught the remaining light in a shimmer that was not entirely natural. Tiny remnants of starlight clung to the fur around her paws.
Ari smiled. “We found her.”
Esme’s expression grew solemn. “She found us.”
Remy recoiled as though struck. Not visibly enough for most people to notice. His daughters noticed everything.
His tone changed. Softness vanished beneath command. “Come here.” Ari blinked. “But Papa, she helped us.” “Now.” The word cracked through the yard. The wards responded. Ariana’s mouth closed. Esme tightened her grip on her sister and began walking toward him, though her eyes remained on Asteria. Ari hesitated. Only for a heartbeat. Then she hurried after Esme, both girls crossing the yard until Remy could reach them.
He pulled them behind him immediately. One hand checked Ariana’s shoulder. The other touched Esme’s hair, her cheek, the back of her neck.
No blood. No marks. No visible enchantment.
He searched their magic next. His power moved over them in a rough, protective sweep.
Ari shivered. “Papa, that tickles.”
Esme looked up at him. “She did not hurt us.”
Remy’s jaw tightened. “I can see that.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Ari leaned around his hip. “She showed us her tummy.”
Remy stared down at her. This was apparently presented as irrefutable character evidence. “Brilliant,” he muttered. “Glad we’ve established a rigorous system.” Asteria remained near the edge of the yard. Small. Still. Watching. The bond, or the beginning of one, continued weaving through the air despite every instinct Remy had screaming at it to stop.
His wards did not reject her.
The outer boundary had been written in his blood. No familiar could cross without invitation, not after Kate. He had layered the spell until even harmless spirits complained about the pressure around the property.
Yet the gate stood open. The sigils along the post glowed softly. Not in warning. In recognition. Remy looked from the gate to Asteria. His stomach dropped.
The word escaped under his breath.
Esme watched him with that unnerving stillness of hers. “You feel her.” Remy’s head turned sharply. The flour on his cheek had begun to flake.
“You feel her,” Esme repeated.
“She does not need our dinner.”
“She lives in the forest.”
Ari looked horrified. “But it is cold.”
Remy shut his eyes for one second. One. That was all he permitted himself. When he opened them again, the panic had been pressed down into something sharper. Manageable. Useful. He crouched in front of the girls. “You went beyond the boundary.”
“You followed something into the woods.”
“It had blue ears,” Ari whispered.
Remy rubbed a hand over his face, smearing the flour further. “Course it did.”
“We are sorry,” Esme said.
His anger loosened immediately at the sound of it. It was never truly anger. Fear merely borrowed the same coat.
Remy touched both their cheeks. “You do not leave the garden without me. Not for rabbits. Not for lights. Not for voices. Not for anything calling your names. Do you understand?”
He kissed Ariana’s forehead. Then Esme’s. Only when he was certain they were safe did he stand again. His attention returned to Asteria. The fox had not moved closer. She had not tested the boundary. Had not bared her teeth. Had not tried to pull on the strange thread forming between them.
That should have helped. It did not.
Ari peeked around him. “She talks.”
Remy gave her a sideways look. “Excellent. Then she can answer.”
He faced Asteria fully. The magic around him did not strike. But it gathered. Dark and gold beneath his skin. The sigils along his arms began to glow one by one.
“Whatever this is,” he said, his voice low, “you stop it.”
The thread tightened. A pulse answered from somewhere near his heart. His fear sharpened into fury because fury was easier. More familiar.
“You do not bond with my daughters.”
Remy’s gaze never left the fox. “You do not step inside my wards. You do not follow them. You do not speak into their heads, touch their magic, or decide they belong to you because you found them wandering through the bloody trees.”
The house creaked behind him. The protective circles beneath the floors awakened. Asteria would feel them now. Layer upon layer of warlock magic. Rough. Powerful. Built by a man who had learned protection through failure and reinforced every weakness with fear.
“You got them home,” Remy continued.
Something softened despite him. A fraction. A reluctant acknowledgment. “For that, you have my thanks.” Ari brightened slightly. Remy ruined it at once. “But that is where this ends.” The pull surged. Fresh magic curled around his, not forcing, not taking, only recognizing.
For the briefest moment, the yard vanished. He felt moonlight. Cold earth. Old stars. A loneliness that did not belong to him.
Not Kate. Nothing like Kate.
His magic leaned toward it. Actually leaned. Curious. Hungry. Enticed by something it had never touched before. Remy severed the contact with a violent twist of his wrist. A circle of light flared between them.
Ariana cried out. “Papa!”
He was not. The lie tasted familiar.
His hand had begun to shake. He hid it by curling his fingers into his palm. Esme stepped from behind him. Only one step. Remy caught the back of her coat immediately. “Esme.”
“She is not trying to take us.”
The certainty in her voice frightened him more than any spell. Esme looked toward Asteria. Then back at Remy. “She is scared too.” Remy’s expression flickered. Ari joined her sister, both still shielded by his body. “Can she come for dinner?”
“That is not an argument.”
“It is a very good argument.”
Despite himself, something almost like exhausted disbelief crossed his face. Then the thread between them pulsed again. Gentler this time. Remy’s chest tightened. He looked at Asteria. At the silver shimmer on her coat. At the patient stillness of her body. At the way she had brought his daughters home and stopped at the threshold without crossing it.
The girls pressed close behind him. Waiting.
The stew simmered inside. The broken spoon lay in two pieces in the grass. Remy had never wanted another familiar near his home. Never wanted another bond. Never wanted to feel that treacherous warmth beneath his ribs again.
But there it was. New. Fresh. Enticing. Terrifying.
He pointed toward the gate. “One meal.”
Remy lifted a finger without looking at her. “One.”
“You can come back,” Ari told Asteria at once.
Remy turned his head. “No, she cannot.”
“I did not say recurring meals.”
Remy looked back at Asteria. His face remained guarded. His magic did not. It curled toward her beneath every defence he raised, recognizing something he had spent years insisting he would never need again.
“You cross that boundary,” he said quietly, “and you do it knowing I will feel every piece of magic you bring into my home.”
“And if you hurt them, I will tear the bond out of my own chest before I let it keep you safe from me.”
A threat. A warning. A confession of fear disguised as both.
Then he stepped aside. Barely. Leaving just enough room for Asteria to pass through the gate.
The wards brightened. Not hostile. Welcoming. Remy stared at them with open betrayal. Ari took Asteria’s invitation as settled law and hurried forward, crouching beside her again.
“Come on. Papa’s stew is good.”
Esme followed. “The bread is dangerous.”
Remy stood in the yard, flour on his cheek, broken spoon at his feet, and dread curling around the fragile new thread beneath his ribs. He watched the little black fox approach his home. Watched his daughters glow around her. Watched his wards recognize her.
And somewhere beneath the panic, beneath the old scar left by Kate, something inside him whispered that the night had not returned his past. It had placed something entirely new at his door. That frightened him more. Because old pain could be predicted. Hope never could.
