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“You don’t have to imagine it. Just live long enough, and suddenly, there you are.”

“Where do you think we’ll be by then?” She was a time mage. That meant running. That meant not knowing what came next, no matter how hard she tried to look.

“I don’t know.” Ivain continued to stroke her hair, slow and soothing. “In the human realm somewhere, I’d venture to guess. Wherever we end up, I’m sure you and Skye will find something to bicker over.”

She didn’t look at him. Just stared at the bowl of the pipe, flicking soot from the rim. “I keep waiting for him to get tired of this mess. He’d be better off if he just… left.”

Ivain gave a small huff. “The ocean’s more likely to vanish than he is to leave you behind. I stopped expecting otherwise a long time ago. You can only watch him dig in so many times before you stop questioning it.” The steady sweep of his hand didn’t pause. If anything, it gentled. “He never gave up, you know.”

Taly tilted her head to look at him, brows furrowed.

Ivain went on, “After you went for the relay, and after Aiden found your horse, your necklace, your belongings, but not you… well. We assumed the worst.” His throat worked, those blue eyes shimmering. “Love always comes with a cost,” he said quietly. “Sarina and I knew exactly what that cost would be when we took you in. How short your life would be compared to ours, and how much it would hurt when you were gone. And I think… I think we spent so long preparing for it, bracing ourselves for the pain, that when it looked like the time had finally come to pay the debt of all those years of happiness… we just accepted it. We gave up.”

Taly sat up slowly. Her chest felt too full, too tight. “Given what you were working with…” Her voice came out thin. “It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion.”

“Don’t be kind. We were short-sighted.” The words came without defensiveness, just quiet certainty. “But Skye—he never gave up. Even with everyone telling him to face his grief, tostart the process of moving on, he never doubted. Not for one moment. Heneverstopped believing you would make it through.”

Taly frowned. “He… didn’t tell me any of that.”

“I figured. I know Skye, and no matter how much we–Ifought him, I know he wouldn’t want you to think less of us.”

She shook her head. “I wouldnever,” she said fiercely.

“I know,” Ivain replied, touching her cheek. “But go easy on him. And on us. And know that if we seem a bit…overprotective?” She barked out a laugh, scrubbing the sting from her eyes. That was one word for it. “It’s because somewhere in us, we’re still bracing for the pain. Still struggling to accept the miracle. Still waiting to pay the inevitable cost that always comes from loving someone so brave and so strong.”

A dozen things hovered on the edge of her tongue, all of them too big or too tangled. In the end, she settled for the one that felt real.

“You talk about the cost of love, but… what if it isn’t worth it? What if you pay that price and realize later that it wasn’t?”

Ivain didn’t say anything. Just looked at her.

And that look—calm,seeing—made the words feel heavier than they had a second ago. She’d chosen them. Thought they were the safest of the tangled dozen. But now she wasn’t so sure. The mirthroot made everything float. Even judgment.

Taly decided she wasn’t interested in hearing his answer. She tried to push herself up, but the world swayed. She flopped back into the grass. “Fuck, I’m baked.”

He didn’t laugh, but a slow, crooked smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I think I am too. That’s some strong mirthroot. And to answer your question—”

“You don’t have to,” Taly muttered, grimacing.

But he hooked an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. “You are,” he said. “Even at your worst, you are worth it.”

Taly groaned into his shoulder, her face hot enough to burn through his coat. “Shut up.”

Ivain ignored her entirely, instead peppering his emotionally allergic daughter with a calm, relentless list of reasons she was worth loving—and refusing to let her wriggle free.

“You’re brilliant. Stubborn.Fearless. Sometimes a little too much.”

She pounded a fist on his chest, squirming like a guttertail stuck in a trap. But he only tightened his grip, holding her there. Making her take it.

“Strong as hell. Fierce when it matters. Loyal.”

“You’re smothering me,” she grumbled into his coat. “This counts as psychological warfare.”

“The best shot with a crossbow I’ve ever trained, and that includes your mother.”

She made a noise halfway between a growl and a whine, sagging against his chest in burning-faced defeat. Love, unfortunately, was not escapable.

It was as much a comfort as it was a nuisance.