POV: Maeve

My mother left instructions for her own funeral and forgot to tell us she was dead.

June Vale handed me the envelope three days after Grant Quinn entered federal custody.

We stood in the kitchen above Vale Repairs, where smoke from the fire still darkened one corner of the ceiling. Rain ticked against the windows. Downstairs, someone tested an engine, and the vibration traveled through the floor into my shoes.

The envelope had MAEVE written across it in my mother's hand.

Not Silas and Maeve. Not my children.

Just me.

“When?” I asked.

June did not insult me by pretending not to understand. “Three years ago.”

Silas went completely still beside me.

Evelyn, standing on my other side, reached toward my hand and stopped before touching it. She waited.

I took her fingers.

“Three years,” Silas said.

His voice sounded like stone dragged over stone.

June set a small wooden box on the table. “Celene had been sick for a long time. Her heart was damaged by the suppressants Elias forced on her. By the time she came here, she could still work, ride, and swear at engines, but she knew the damage would catch her.”

“You had our address,” Silas said.

“We had the address of the house that intercepted eleven letters.”

His jaw tightened.

June did not step back. “The last woman who tried to contact you disappeared before reaching the county line. Your mother refused to risk another life merely to make herself feel forgiven.”

“We could have come.”

“You were seventeen and twelve when she first found Vale. Your father controlled your money, your guards, your school, and every road off Blackwood land.” June's voice softened without becoming gentle. “She believed coming for you would bring him here.”

I hated the explanation because it made sense.

I hated my mother because some young part of me still wanted her to have crossed the road anyway.

“Did she ask for us at the end?”

June looked at the envelope. “Every day.”

That hurt worse than no.

Silas put both hands on the table. The completed mate bond between him and Evelyn was not something I could feel, but I saw its language now. Evelyn did not tell him to calm down. She moved close enough for her shoulder to touch his arm, and he allowed the contact without using her body as a place to hide.

I broke the seal.

Maeve,

If June gives you this, then I have missed my last chance to explain badly in person.

I laughed once. It came out broken.

My mother had always explained badly. When I was six, she told me thunder was the sky moving furniture. I spent two years worrying that heaven would drop a couch.

The letter continued.

Your brother will look for a decision he can punish. He will want one moment when I chose the refuge instead of you. Tell him there were hundreds. I chose it every morning I woke here. Some days that choice saved a woman. Some days it was only fear wearing useful clothes.

Silas turned away.

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked.

“No.”

I read aloud.

I wanted to return. I also knew your father would use my return to find every woman I had moved. Both things were true. Love did not make the decision clean.

To you, my little storm, I owe a separate apology. I taught Silas how to check a door and taught you how to listen through one. I prepared him to fight and prepared you to hide. I called that protection because I had not yet learned that children should not have to become talented at surviving their parents.

The page blurred.

I pressed my thumb beneath one eye, angry at the tear as if it had arrived without permission.

Evelyn squeezed my hand.

“Little storm?” she asked quietly.

“I bit a council elder when I was four.”

Silas faced the window. “He took her doll.”

“He gave it back.”

June's mouth twitched. For one second, grief loosened enough to let us breathe.

At the bottom of the first page, my mother had drawn a crooked wolf with a nurse's cap. I traced the ears.

The second page contained no apology.

It contained names.

Twenty-eight women. Seven children. Four drivers. Two doctors. Beside each name was a date, a new county, and a symbol I recognized from the clinic records.

“These are medical transfers,” I said.

June nodded. “Women Celene moved after Vale stopped keeping full destinations in one place.”

“Why put them together now?” Evelyn asked.

“Because she wanted one complete copy to exist after Elias died.”

I reached the final paragraph.