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“Daddy, look!”

I grunt. “Not now, Lil.”

“But I made a badge for you. Look—‘Best Orc Dad!’ I drew tusks and everything.” She’s holding it up proudly. A slice of cardboard with glitter glue and lopsided writing. The ‘B’ is backwards.

My heart should soften. But it doesn’t. Not yet.

Because my head’s a swamp of deadlines and liability waivers and donors breathing down my neck through Julie’s very polite email chains.

“I’ll look later, I promise.”

“But the staff dinner isnow,” she says. “And you’re supposed to be my guest.”

I finally glance up. She’s wearing a flower crown—probably from the fairy garden—and a sticky grin. Her boots are mismatched. Her shirt’s on inside out.

She’s beaming.

And I?

I can only sigh.

“Lil, I have work.”

“But you said you’d eat dinner with me.”

“I said I’dtry.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean. Her face flickers, just for a second.

She nods, small and quiet. “Okay.”

“Go on ahead,” I say, already turning back to the papers. “I’ll catch up.”

I don’t see her leave. I don’t kiss her forehead or ruffle her hair or check which staffer she goes with.

I just assume.

And that's the thing about assumptions. They don't scream when they're wrong.

—

I’m a warrior. A seasoned businessman. A shining specimen of what an orc male should strive to be.

There are very few things in this world that make me afraid.

Losing my daughter is one of them.

The moment I notice the empty seat at the staff dinner table, my world stops.

Julie’s mid-laugh, Groth is unwrapping a second slice of roast-beast pie, someone’s joking about enchanted compost bins—and all I can hear is the vacuum of space where Lillian should be.

“She was just here,” I say. Then louder: “She was just here.”

Julie looks up. “Torack?”

“She’s not here.”

Groth is already rising. Julie is pushing back her chair. I’m scanning exits, calculating distance to the lake, the trails, the old herb fields.

Julie tries to stay calm. “Maybe she went to the art tent?—”