Elara’s POV

For the third consecutive morning, the pancakes were perfect.

Golden. Fluffy. Steam curling off the stack like little ghosts rising from the plate. Margaret had drizzled honey across the top the way she always did, and the kitchen smelled like butter and warmth and everything a home should be.

I couldn’t eat.

My fork pressed into the edge of the top pancake. It left a dent. I stared at that dent like it held answers. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Valerius..."

Kaelen’s voice. Broken. Shattered glass dragged across stone just as I had heard it through the wall three days ago. It had been living inside my skull ever since, replaying on a loop I couldn’t silence. Every time I closed my eyes. Every time the room went quiet. Every time I tried to swallow food.

My stomach lurched. I set the fork down.

"You need to eat something, dear." Margaret’s hand settled on my shoulder. Warm. Steady. The kind of touch that should have been comforting. "Even just a few bites."

Robert looked up from his newspaper. "She’s right. You’ll make yourself ill if you keep going like this. Just try a little. For strength."

I picked up the fork again. Cut a small piece. Put it in my mouth.

Sawdust. Warm, honey-flavored sawdust that turned to paste against my tongue.

I forced myself to swallow. My throat rejected it. I pressed my hand over my mouth and breathed through my nose until the nausea passed.

Footsteps on the stairs. Heavy. Deliberate. Finnian appeared in the doorway, hair still damp from washing, towel slung over one shoulder. His gaze went straight to my plate.

Untouched. Except for that one pathetic bite.

His brow furrowed. "Ela."

Just my name. Nothing else. But the weight behind it said everything. You’re scaring me. You’re fading. Stop this.

"I’m not hungry," I said.

He pulled out the chair beside me and sat down. Didn’t speak. Just sat there, radiating that quiet, stubborn concern that reminded me so much of—

No. I shut that thought down before it could form.

"I’ll eat later," I lied.

Margaret and Finnian exchanged a look over my head. I pretended not to notice.

---

The bathroom mirror didn’t lie.

I stood before it after breakfast, gripping the edges of the basin. The woman staring back at me had hollowed cheeks. Bruise-dark crescents beneath her eyes. Her silver-white hair hung in a limp braid, strands escaping at every angle.

She looked like someone who had made an unforgivable mistake and knew it.

Because you did.

I turned away from the mirror before that thought could grow teeth.

---

Morrison’s Smithy opened at its usual hour. I sat behind the front counter on my stool, ledger open, quill in hand. The familiar smell of iron filings and coal smoke drifted from the back workshop where Finnian was already hammering.

I recorded yesterday’s orders. Checked the supply list. Counted coins in the lockbox. Every motion mechanical. A body performing tasks while the mind lived somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere in a city far from here, a little boy with dark curls and gold eyes was going about his day. Maybe sitting in a classroom. Maybe reading a book. Maybe asking someone—anyone— where his mother had gone.

Stop it.

The bell above the door chimed at midday. Mrs. Patterson shuffled in, wrapped in her worn wool coat despite the mild weather. She had sharp grandmother eyes—the kind that missed nothing and forgave less.

"Here for the plow blade," she announced.

I retrieved it from the finished rack. The repair was clean. Finnian’s work was always clean.

"All set, Mrs. Patterson." I wrapped it in cloth and slid it across the counter. "The edge should hold through the season."

She didn’t take it immediately. Those sharp eyes swept over me instead. Head to toe. Lingering on my face.

"You look terrible, dear."

No venom in it. Just blunt, grandmotherly observation.

"I haven’t been sleeping well."

"Hmm." She picked up the wrapped blade. "My granddaughter looked just like you after her husband left. Same hollow cheeks. Same dead eyes." She tucked the package under her arm. "Grief eats from the inside, you know. Won’t stop until you feed it something else."

She paid. She left. The bell chimed behind her.

I sat very still for a long time after that.

---

The afternoon brought a transmission through the shop’s communication crystal. I activated it and answered with the voice I’d rehearsed—bright, professional, empty.

"Morrison’s Smithy, Sarah speaking."

The caller’s voice crackled through the crystal, needing horseshoes replaced. I booked the appointment for two o’clock on Thursday, scratching it into the schedule book. My hand was steady. My voice was steady. Everything about me appeared steady.

Inside, I was crumbling.

By the time I locked the front door and flipped the sign, exhaustion had settled into my bones like lead. Not the kind that sleep could fix. The kind that came from carrying something too heavy for too long.

---

That evening, Margaret stood at the stove stirring stew. The kitchen windows had fogged from the steam. Robert sat in his usual chair, whittling something small and shapeless. I sat at the table, hands wrapped around a mug of tea I hadn’t sipped.

Finnian came in through the back door, wiping his hands on a rag. He hung his leather apron on the hook and leaned against the doorframe.

"I need to make a supply run tomorrow," he said. Casual. Directed at the room in general. "The metal supplier in the capital is running a promotion on cast iron. Good price. Won’t last."

My fingers tightened around the mug.

The capital.

The metal supplier in the capital. The one on Thornwell Street. Thornwell Street, which was— my heart slammed against my ribs—near the academy district. Near his academy.

"I’ll head out at dawn," Finnian continued, reaching for a bread roll. "Should be back before nightfall if the roads are clear."

The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

"Take me with you."

Silence.

Margaret’s spoon paused mid-stir. Robert’s whittling knife went still. Finnian’s hand froze halfway to the bread basket.

He turned to look at me. Those warm eyes had gone very serious. "No."

"Finnian—"

"Ela. No." He straightened from the doorframe. "You know why."

"I won’t go near anyone. I’ll stay in the cart. I’ll wear a hood. I just—"

"His father has eyes everywhere." Finnian’s voice dropped low. Hard. The voice he used when he meant business. "Scouts. Soldiers. People who know your face. If even one of them spots you—one—it’s over. Everything we’ve built here. This shop. This house. Your safety. Gone."

"I know that."

"Do you? Because what you’re asking me is to drive you straight into the mouth of the wolf who’s been hunting for you."

The metaphor landed like a slap. My jaw clenched.

"It’s stupid," he said flatly. "It’s reckless. It’s the single most dangerous thing you could possibly do right now. You’d be walking into—"

"I just want to see my son."

My voice broke on the last word. Shattered clean in half like a stick snapped over a knee.

The kitchen went deathly quiet.

"I just..." The tears came without permission. Hot. Fast. Burning tracks down my hollowed cheeks. "I need to see him. Just once. Just from far away. I won’t talk to him. I won’t go close. I just need to see him, Finnian. I need to know he’s all right. I need to know he’s eating and sleeping and that someone is holding him when he cries because I—"

A sob ripped through me. Ugly. Violent. I pressed both hands over my mouth, but it was too late. The dam had broken.

"I can’t do this," I gasped between heaving breaths. "I can’t sit here day after day pretending to be someone named Sarah who books horseshoe appointments while my child is out there thinking I abandoned him. I hear his voice in my sleep. I hear him calling for me. And I can’t—I can’t—"

I couldn’t finish. The crying swallowed everything. My whole body shook with it. I folded forward until my forehead touched the table, and I wept the way I hadn’t allowed myself to weep since I’d arrived at this place.

Margaret crossed the kitchen and wrapped her arms around me. She didn’t say anything. Just held on.

Through the blur of tears, I saw Finnian standing rigid by the door. His jaw was tight. His hands were fists at his sides. Something in his expression was at war—duty against compassion, reason against mercy.

"It’s too dangerous," he said again. But quieter now. The steel was leaching from his voice.

I lifted my head. Looked at him through swollen, burning eyes.

"Please." A whisper. Barely a sound at all. "Please, Finnian. He’s my little boy."

He stared at me. I watched the battle play out across his face—the protector fighting the friend, the rational mind fighting the aching heart.

He ran both hands through his still-damp hair. Turned away. Paced two steps. Turned back.

His breath left him in one long, heavy exhale. Like something collapsing.

"Fine," he said at last. "Fine. You can come."