The morning after the revelation, the world looked different.
Sera stood at the kitchen window, watching the sunrise bleed gold across the sky. The snow was almost gone now — just patches of white in the shadows, stubborn remnants of a winter that had overstayed its welcome. In the garden, the first crocuses were pushing through the mud, purple and white and impossibly brave.
Elara was still asleep. Lumi was still asleep. The cottage was quiet in a way it hadn't been in months — not the tense quiet of waiting for the next attack, but the soft quiet of a world catching its breath.
Sera's mother's journal lay open on the table.
She'd read it again. All of it. The entries about Isolde's escape, about Magnus, about the failsafe. The entries about the daughter she'd named and lost and never
