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The accusation hits home because it’s true. Every choice I’ve made, every lie I’ve told, every relationship I’ve prevented—all of it in service of keeping her safe. But safe from what? From a world that would kill her for existing? Or from the truth about what I’ve become to protect her?

“I’ve done everything to—”

“To protect me. I know.” She laughs bitterly. “But what if I don’t want to be protected anymore? What if I want to make my own choices about what risks to take?”

You can’t. You have no idea what that would mean.

“After your birthday,” I hear myself say, though the words feel hollow now. “We’ll discuss everything after your birthday.”

It’s the same promise I’ve been making for months, but now I’m not even sure we’ll make it that far. Something in my tone must betray this fear because Ember stares at me for a long moment, searching my face for clues I’m not sure I can hide anymore.

“Everything?” she asks quietly.

“Everything I can tell you.”

It’s not the answer she wants, but it’s the closest to honesty I can manage. She nods slowly, but I can see the wheels turning behind her eyes.

“Okay,” she says finally. “On my twenty-first birthday, I want the truth. About my father. About why we live like this. About why my magic doesn’t match anything in your carefully constructed library.” Her gaze locks with mine. “Because if you won’t tell me, I’ll find my own answers.”

The threat sits between us like a coiled snake. The very investigation she’s promising could expose us both. Could lead her straight into the hands of people whose protocols are designed to find exactly what she is.

Hargen will help. He has to.

Because I can’t think of any alternatives.

The thought of my message makes my stomach clench. Did I really reach out to him? After so long, did I really break every secret I’ve built our lives around? But with Vex and his cronies breathing down our necks, desperate measures seem like the only option left.

“Mom?” Ember’s voice carries from across the room. “You look different. Like something just changed.”

I school my features into something resembling calm. “Just thinking about your birthday, darling. I can’t believe that in two weeks, my little girl will be twenty-one.”

If we make it that long. If they don’t find us first. If Hargen gets my message and finds a way to help.

It’s more truth than I’ve given her in years, layered with fears I can’t voice.

In weeks, she’ll reach full magical maturity.

But before then, Vex might expose everything we’re hiding.

And somewhere between now and either deadline, the man I once loved might walk back into our lives carrying years of grief and questions I’m not sure I can answer.

“I’m already a woman, Mom.”

I feel my lips pull into a genuine smile, despite the weight of everything closing in around us. “But you’ll always be my baby.”

She returns to her laptop, but I know this conversation isn’t over. She knows something has shifted. The careful balance we’ve maintained is cracking, and she can sense it.

But she doesn’t know about the dangers we’re facing. Doesn’t know that our time might be measured in days, not weeks.

I close my eyes and reach for the meditation techniques that have kept me functional through decades of deception. Emotional compartmentalization. Mental disciplines that allow me to be multiple people simultaneously.

Tonight, they feel like trying to hold back an avalanche with bare hands.

Somewhere out there, through the magical bond I’ve never dared sever completely, I sense a shift in the energy that’s always felt like Hargen. Distant but approaching. Carrying with him the promise of revelation and reckoning.

He’s coming.

The certainty hits me. Whatever his response to my message, whatever plan he’s forming, he’s moving toward us. The father Ember doesn’t know exists, racing against time to save a daughter he’s never met from protocols designed to destroy people like her.

I open my eyes and study Ember—really study her. The silvery hair catching the lamplight. The stubborn set of her jaw when she’s thinking. The way her fingers move in unconscious patterns when she’s working magic, tracing symbols I taught her, but that came from another heritage entirely.

She’s beautiful. Brilliant. The living proof that love can create miracles even in the darkest circumstances.

“I love you.” The words escape before I can stop them, raw with too many years of hidden truths and the desperate fear that I might not have much time left to say them.

Ember looks up, startled by the emotion in my voice. “I love you, too. But Mom—”

“But you need more than love. You need honesty.” I meet her gaze, letting her see some of the pain I’ve carried alone for so long. “And you’ll have it. I promise. After your birthday, no more secrets.”

If we make it that long.

Her eyes widen slightly. It’s the first completely honest thing I’ve said to her in years, and she recognizes the weight of it.

“Okay,” she says softly. “Two weeks.”

Two weeks that might as well be two years with Vex closing in. Two weeks to prepare for the end of the world as we know it. Two weeks to find the courage to choose truth over safety.

He’s coming.

But will he arrive in time?