Mara’s POV
Relief is not loud.
It settles.
It arrives in the small, unexpected moments—like the way my hands stop shaking without me noticing, or how my chest loosens just enough for a full breath to make it all the way in.
Rowan sleeps down the hall.
That fact feels fragile, like saying it too loudly might undo it.
I sit at the kitchen table with a mug gone cold between my palms, staring at nothing in particular. The house has shifted again—not to peace, exactly, but to something softer. A pause. A recalibration.
Declan moves quietly around the room, efficient without being distant. He doesn’t hover. He doesn’t disappear. He exists in that steady in-between space that makes it possible for me to feel the aftershock of the last few days finally.
“That was a clean handoff,” I say at
