Malcolm clutched Brenda's unconscious form to his chest, her face ghostly pale in the candlelight that danced across the cave's rough-hewn walls. The magnitude of his choices pressed down upon him like a physical weight, threatening to drive him to his knees.
"Forgive me, mo chridhe," he whispered against her temple, the Gaelic endearment falling from his lips like a prayer. "I never meant for this pain to be yours."
A floorboard's protest shattered his reverie. His head snapped up, nostrils filling with a familiar scent that carried hints of dried herbs and ancient magic. There in the doorway stood his aunt – though whether she was Julia or Agnes in this moment, he couldn't quite say. Her weathered face held equal measures of sympathy and vexation.
"Aunt Julia," he ventured, voice roug
