Elara’s POV

The morning air bit through my thin jacket like a warning.

I stood on the Morrisons’ front porch, gripping the strap of my small travel bag so hard my knuckles ached. The wood beneath my boots was worn smooth from countless footsteps—family footsteps, real ones. The kind that belonged to people who stayed.

I was not one of those people.

The memory wouldn’t stop replaying. Valerius at the academy. That pulse of recognition rippling through the air like a stone dropped into still water. He’d felt me. My son had sensed my presence, and for a terrible, beautiful moment, I’d felt him reach back.

I had to go. Now. Before he came looking.

The screen door creaked behind me.

"You’re really leaving." Margaret’s voice was soft. Not a question.

I turned. She stood in the doorway holding a chipped ceramic mug, steam curling from the coffee inside. Flour dusted her apron—she’d already been baking. Of course she had. That was what Margaret Morrison did when she couldn’t fix something. She baked. The faint scent of vanilla and warm butter clung to her like a second skin.

"I have to," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. A small mercy.

"No, darling." She stepped onto the porch and set her mug on the railing. "You don’t have to do anything. You could stay. Right here. This room is yours as long as you want it."

The kindness in her words was a knife. Gentle and precise.

"Margaret—"

"You’re my precious baby girl. You know that." Her eyes glistened. She reached for my hand and squeezed it between both of hers. Her palms were warm and rough from a lifetime of kneading dough. "Whatever trouble is chasing you, we can face it together."

I almost broke right there. Almost dropped the bag and let her pull me inside and pour me coffee and pretend I was someone who deserved this.

But I wasn’t.

I was a woman who had abandoned her child. A coward dressed in borrowed clothes, hiding behind a borrowed name.

"I can’t stay," I whispered. "If I do, the people looking for me will come here. I won’t put your family in danger."

Margaret’s lips pressed together. She didn’t argue. She understood danger—she’d lived near the border long enough to recognize it in someone’s eyes. But understanding didn’t make the letting go easier.

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Robert appeared behind his wife, one hand resting on her shoulder. He looked older this morning. Tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. The lines around his eyes had deepened overnight, and his jaw worked silently for a moment before he spoke.

"You take care of yourself out there, little sweetheart." His voice was gruff. Thick. "And you remember—this is your home. Always. Doesn’t matter how far you go or how long you’re gone. Door’s always open."

Something cracked inside my chest. I nodded quickly because if I opened my mouth I would sob, and if I started sobbing I would never stop.

Robert pulled me into a hug. Brief. Firm. The kind of embrace a father gives. I wouldn’t know—I’d never had one. But I imagined this was it.

Margaret kissed my cheek. Her tears were warm against my skin.

I pulled away before I could change my mind.

---

Finnian was already waiting by the wagon, the horses stamping impatiently in the cold. He didn’t say anything when I climbed up beside him. Just flicked the reins and guided us down the dirt road toward the station.

The silence between us was heavy. Full of all the things neither of us wanted to say.

We were halfway there before he spoke.

"Have you figured out where you’re going?"

I stared at the road ahead. Trees lined both sides, their bare branches clawing at a pale grey sky. "West," I said. "Somewhere big enough to disappear."

He was quiet for a moment. "There’s a coach that leaves at half past nine. Goes to Portland. From there you can transfer to just about anywhere."

Portland. I turned the name over in my mind. Far enough. Anonymous enough. A city where one more stranger wouldn’t draw a second glance.

"That works," I said.

Finnian’s jaw tightened. His hands flexed on the reins.

"Ela." His voice dropped. "You don’t have to do this alone."

"Yes, I do."

He looked at me then—really looked—and I saw it in his eyes. The same helpless frustration I’d seen in his mother’s. The wanting to fix something unfixable.

"I’ll be fine," I lied.

He didn’t believe me. But he nodded.

The station was a squat stone building at the crossroads, unremarkable and half-empty at this hour. A faded sign swung in the wind above the entrance. Coaches waited in the yard—one already being loaded, another sitting dark and dormant.

Finnian pulled the wagon to a stop and jumped down. Before I could grab my bag, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

"Here."

I took it. Unfolded it carefully. On one side, in Finnian’s precise handwriting, was his messaging sigil—a communication rune I could use to reach him from anywhere. On the other side, in Margaret’s looping, flour-smudged script, was a recipe.

"Mom’s chocolate cookies," Finnian said. There was a ghost of a smile on his face. Sad and crooked. "She said you asked about it once. Made her promise to write it down."

My throat closed. I folded the paper and pressed it against my chest.

"Thank you," I managed. "For everything. All of it."

He pulled me into a brief, tight hug. "Stay alive, Ela. That’s all I ask."

I nodded against his shoulder, then pulled back and walked toward the station before my resolve could crumble.

---

The ticket clerk was half asleep behind the counter, his chin propped on one hand, eyelids drooping. He blinked blearily when I approached.

"Portland coach," I said. "One seat."

He slid a ticket across the counter without looking up, took my coins, and promptly resumed his nap.

The coach was old. The leather seats were cracked and the windows were smudged with grime. I chose a seat near the back, pressed against the wall where I could see the door and nobody could come up behind me. Survival instincts. The only gift my recent life had given me.

A handful of other passengers trickled in. A merchant with a crate of clinking bottles. An elderly couple who held hands as they settled into the front row. A woman across the aisle with a thick wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders, already reading a book.

The driver called out something I didn’t catch. The coach lurched forward.

I watched the station shrink through the grimy window. Watched the crossroads disappear. Watched the last sliver of the Morrison property—a distant plume of chimney smoke rising above the treeline—fade into nothing.

Gone.

I exhaled. Pressed my forehead against the cold glass.

Then I unzipped my bag to find my water flask. My fingers brushed something that shouldn’t have been there.

An envelope. Thick. Heavy. Tucked into the inner pocket where I definitely hadn’t put it.

My name was written on the front. Not my real name.

Sarah.

Margaret’s handwriting.

My hands were shaking as I opened it.

Bills worth hundreds of gold coins. Twenties, fifties, hundreds. Gold-stamped currency notes folded neatly, one on top of another, packed so tightly the envelope barely held them. More money than I’d earned in all my past work combined. More than enough to start over. More than enough to survive.

Beneath the money, a small piece of paper. A note.

Dear Sarah,

Don’t you dare try to give this back. This isn’t charity. This is a gift from your Mom and Dad Morrison. We believe in you. Go create something beautiful, sweetheart. And come home when you’re ready.

Love always,

Mom and Dad Morrison

Mom and Dad.

The words blurred. The note trembled in my hands. Something inside me—something I’d been holding together with clenched teeth and sheer stubbornness for months—shattered completely.

A sound tore from my throat. Raw. Broken. Not quiet. Not dignified. The kind of crying that comes from somewhere deeper than grief, somewhere past shame and guilt, from the hollow place where a mother’s love lives when she has left her child behind.

They called themselves my parents. These people who owed me nothing. Who had taken in a stranger with a fake name and haunted eyes and treated her like blood. Like family.

And I had run from them too.

I pressed the note against my mouth to muffle the sobs, but they wouldn’t stop. My shoulders heaved. Tears streamed down my face and dripped onto the gold-stamped bills scattered in my lap.

I was the weakest person alive. I had abandoned my child. And now I had left behind the only people in the world who loved me without condition, without expectation, without even knowing my real name.

The coach rattled on. The landscape outside blurred into grey and green streaks through my tears.

The woman across the aisle had lowered her book. Her eyes were warm with concern, her brow furrowed beneath her wool shawl as a gentle hand reached out to touch my arm.

"Are you alright, dear?"