ALCYDE
The law office occupies a renovated antebellum mansion on Durango's main street, where magnolias drip Spanish moss despite being five hundred miles from proper bayou country. Magic bleeds through everything in this territory—even the trees forget where they're supposed to grow. I park the truck under branches that whisper secrets in languages that predate English, and Sophia's hand finds mine across the console.
"You don't have to come in." My thumb traces circles on her palm, feeling the raised scars from sixteen years of kitchen burns. "Financial meetings are boring as hell."
"Your father's attorney." Her brown eyes—threaded now with permanent silver from Maelis's intervention—study my face with that unnerving ability to read what I'm not saying. "You've been putting this off f
