Grainne’s kitchen smelled of fish stock and onions, baked bread, and seaweed drying on a line near the hearth. The heat from the fire settled into Lain’s face and hands as soon as she stepped inside, and the room’s ordinary clutter of stacked cups and a child’s knit cap tossed over a chair made her shoulders drop in a way she couldn’t explain.

  Eamon had arrived ahead of them with an armful of kindling, and he’d already taken over the back corner as if he’d never left. He leaned against the counter now, watching Morgan with that steady, assessing look of his. Grainne spared Morgan one quick glance, then swatted his arm with the back of her hand.

  “Sit,” she said. “You’re making the floor nervous.”

  “It’s stone,” Morgan replied.

  “It has good sense,” Grainne said, and shoved a cup into Lain’s hands before she could object. “Drink this, love. It’ll warm you up.”

  The tea tasted of mint and salt and a root that warmed her tongue. Lain swallowed carefully. Her stomach held it, and the relief came like a loosening across her ribs, a small mercy she did not want to gamble away.

  Finn barreled in from the other room with a wooden whale in his hands and stopped short when he saw them, eyes wide with joy and suspicion at once.

  “You came back,” he said to Morgan, accusing as a priest.

  Morgan gave him a half-smile. “You said it was my job to teach you whatever knots your father missed.”

  “So only the useless ones,” Eamon said.

  Finn’s gaze slid to Lain. He studied her ears and her tail with the frank interest of a child who hasn’t learned to hide curiosity behind manners. Then he lifted the whale toward her.

  “It swims,” he announced.

  Lain took it gently, turning it in her hands. The whale’s belly had been darkened with soot, its dorsal ridge carved too high, and someone had painted a single eye on each side with a dot of tar. She traced the ridges with her thumb and handed it back.

  “It looks like it knows where it’s going,” she said.

  Finn looked pleased by that.

  Orla lingered at the doorway, half-hidden behind the frame. Last night, she’d barely looked at Lain. Tonight she looked, then looked away, then looked again. Her fingers worried the hem of her sleeve until the cloth twisted tight.

  Grainne caught the motion and clicked her tongue. “Orla. Either come into the room or haunt the hall. Choose.”

  Orla’s chin lifted with stubborn dignity, and she stepped in, slow and careful, keeping a wide berth around Morgan’s chair as if he might bite.

  Lain sat at the table where Grainne pointed her, close enough to the hearth that she could feel the heat along her hocks. Morgan took the seat beside her without comment. Eamon sat opposite, elbows on the table, and began tearing bread as if the act of feeding himself held the world in place.

  Grainne set bowls down one by one. The soup was thick with potatoes and white fish, the surface glossed with oil, dill scattered across the top. She gave Lain a bowl that looked different from the others, this one smelling of seaweed but with no fish in it.

  “Here you are, love,” Grainne said softly. “I know Kelthi don’t eat meat. There are steamed clams you can have if that settles well enough in your stomach. But this is just vegetable and kelp stock.”

  Lain smiled up at her with immense gratitude. She lifted her spoon and took a measured mouthful. The broth was rich, the potatoes falling apart against her tongue. She took several bites, the heat settling in her stomach.

  Across the table, Orla watched her. Lain met her gaze and didn’t look away. Orla flushed and glanced down at her own bow, then nudged a small dish toward lain with the side of her hand. It had slices of apple, pale and glistening with honey.

  Grainne saw this and lifted her brows. “Well,” she said, and made a satisfied sound as she turned back to the stove.

  Lain picked up a slice. The honey stuck to her fingers. She held the apple out toward Orla instead of eating it. Orla stared at the slice. Her eyes flicked to Morgan, then back to Lain’s hand.

  “It’s for you,” Orla said.

  “I know,” Lain answered. “Share with me anyway.”

  Orla held herself still for several breaths, then reached out and took the offered slice. She ate it in two bites, the honey shining at the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her wrist and looked at Lain again, less guarded.

  Finn leaned across the table. “Orla doesn’t share,” he said, delighted by the scandal.

  “I do,” Orla snapped.

  Eamon’s mouth twitched. He didn’t laugh, but his eyes softened.

  Morgan watched Lain and the bond carried his focus.

  Grainne returned with a loaf of bread and slammed it down between them. “Eat,” she said again, then pointed her spoon at Morgan. “And you, keep that look off your face.”

  Morgan didn’t pretend not to understand. He gave a small nod that looked like capitulation and respect in equal measure.

  Lain took another mouthful of soup, and couldn’t stop noticing the way Morgan listened to Grainne as if her words had weight beyond courtesy. Lain had seen him with soldiers and priests and wardens. She’d seen people bend around him. Grainne didn’t bend. She set the room’s rules and expected them to hold.

  Orla hovered at the edge of the table again, her hands fisted in her sleeves, her gaze fixed on Lain with a kind of guarded hunger that made Lain soften. The child’s attention kept drifting to Lain’s ears, then snapping away whenever she realized she was staring.

  “You have ears,” Orla whispered.

  Lain’s ears angled back, then forward again. “I do. So do you.”

  Orla shook her head. “That’s not the same.”

  “Oh? What’s different about them?” Lain swiveled her doe ears about, then turned her head as if hearing something in the room. “You can’t do this?”

  Orla giggled behind her hand. “No,” she said.

  “Oh, really?” Lain dropped her ears back. “How about that?”

  Orla shook her head.

  “Ah. Are yours soft and fuzzy?”

  Orla shook her head again. “Are they really soft?”

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  Lain nodded. She angled her head a fraction, offering the curve of her ear without forcing the moment. “Want to feel?” Lain said.

  Orla glanced at Grainne, then Morgan, then Eamon, as if making sure no one would punish her for curiosity. Eamon looked away on purpose, giving her the privacy of permission.

  Orla’s fingertips came up and brushed the edge of Lain’s ear. The touch was light and testing, and it made her ear flick reflexively.

  Orla snatched her hand back. Lain laughed. “They do that when it tickles,” she said. She curved her ear toward Orla again.

  Orla’s fingers traced the curve once more, then retreated.

  “They are soft,” she said, amazed.

  Lain laughed. “So are yours.”

  Orla put her fingers to her own ears as if she’d never thought to check. The image was so funny that Lain laughed again, and then a picture rose to her mind so fast it made her blink. A daughter at a table, a child’s hand in hers. A small voice saying her ears were soft.

  The image arrived as longing.

  Having felt that through the bond, Morgan’s thumb brushed her wrist. The gesture carried through the bond with such tenderness Lain had to steady her breathing before she could speak again.

  Dinner ran its course. Finn talked, Grainne corrected him, Eamon asked him a question about whales that made him think. Orla ate in careful bites, eyes flicking between Lain and Grainne as if she wanted to understand the differences between them. Morgan ate more than he had the night before. He’d eaten earlier today, too, something that he had to seek out to satisfy whatever strange hunger moved the Veinwrights.

  She didn’t want to think about that.

  When the last bowls were scraped clean and pushed aside, Grainne wiped her hands on her apron and stood over the table like a judge who had decided to offer mercy for one more night.

  “Up,” she said to the children. “Teeth. Faces. Bed.”

  Finn groaned with theatrical misery, then slid off the bench and bolted toward the washbasin as if speed might count as obedience. Orla followed more slowly, still careful, but she paused beside Lain’s chair with the stubbornness of a child.

  “Will you come back tomorrow?” Orla asked.

  Grainne made a sound from the hearth. “She’s not a kitten, Orla.”

  Lain wanted to promise, but she couldn’t. “I’m not sure,” she said honestly.

  Orla studied her, then nodded, and went after Finn.

  Grainne began clearing the table with brisk efficiency. Eamon stood and took plates for her, stacking them by the sink. Morgan rose too, and for a moment he expected him to tell her it was time to leave. Instead, he reached for a cloth and began wiping the table, gathering crumbs into his palm.

  Grainne watched him, eyebrows raised. “You’ve got hands for more than cutting,” she said.

  Morgan looked up. “I didn’t always have servants.”

  Eamon snorted. “That’s not what she means, mate.”

  Morgan’s mouth shifted, acknowledging the jab without taking it.

  Grainne set the kettle on the hook near the fire and turned toward the back hall. “Eamon,” she called. “Bring them in when you’re done with the water.”

  Eamon answered with a grunt that meant yes.

  From the hall came Finn’s voice, muffled and indignant. “But my face is already clean!”

  “The dirt on your nose says otherwise,” Grainne called back. “Wash.”

  Lain let out a small laugh. Morgan looked over at her. The bond carried a flicker of relief, the same quiet lift she’d felt when the dolphins broke the surface.

  Orla appeared again, hair damp, face scrubbed pink. Finn followed, leaving a trail of water drops across the floor.

  “Bed,” Grainne repeated, and pointed down the hall. Finn began to protest, then stopped when Morgan crouched before him.

  “Whales,” Morgan said.

  Finn’s eyes lit. “Whales.”

  Morgan tilted his head. “Do whales sleep?”

  Finn blinked, caught. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Finn looked at Eamon, then back. “In the water?”

  Morgan’s gaze stayed steady, expectant. Finn’s shoulders sagged in defeat, then rose again in pride at being asked a question like a grown man. “They… float.”

  Morgan nodded. “Then you can float in your bed.”

  Finn narrowed his eyes, considering the logic. “Should I hold my breath?”

  “Might be worth a shot. Want to try it? Once you're both in bed, you can have Orla count.”

  Loving the idea of a new game, Finn charged down the hall.

  “Uncle Morgan,” Orla said softly, her finger drawing lines on the wall, “last time you were here, you sang us a song.”

  “Did I?”

  Orla nodded. “Maybe you should do that again.”

  “Should I, now?” Morgan seemed to consider, eyes rolling to the ceiling. He glanced at Grainne, who couldn’t hide her smile. “Well, I suppose I can give that a try.”

  Eamon jerked his chin toward the hall. “Don’t scare them.”

  Morgan followed Orla down the narrow corridor, and Lain went after him. The bedroom had two small beds, blankets folded tight, a basket of toys in the corner, shells on the windowsills that caught the last light outside. Finn had already thrown himself on his mattress and was kicking his feet. Orla sat at the edge of her bed with careful posture, hands in her lap, watching Morgan with solemn attention. She looked older in this light, as if the night asked more of her than the day.

  Morgan stood in the doorway for a breath, then walked in and sat on the floor between the beds. He bantered with them for a few minutes, fulfilling Finn’s promise to play a game of counting his breath. He had Orla count down as Finn held, then accused the boy of cheating by breathing through his nose, and all three of them laughed. Then, of course, it was Orla’s turn, and she nearly beat him, but the inevitable winner was the older boy with the bigger lungs.

  “Alright. Time for a song. Under the covers,” Morgan said, and Orla did as she was told. Then Morgan’s voice came low and even, a cadence meant to settle a room.

  Suan, a ghrá, suan go séimh,

  Tá an oíche ag fanacht leat.

  Codail faoin réalta bhán,

  Go dtiocfaidh an solas ar ais.

  It didn’t take long for both children to close their eyes. Orla’s face softened by degrees, the guardedness loosening as the song continued.

  Tá an fhuil ciúin, tá an domhan mall,

  Ná bíodh eagla ort, a chroí.

  Coinneoidh an talamh thú slán,

  Go dtí an maidin, go dtí an lá.

  Lain stood at the foot of the bed, one hand resting on the post, and felt an unexpected warmth in her chest. It was a similar lullaby to the one he’d sung for her, several nights ago; she didn’t think it was exactly the same, but it was difficult to tell. It carried a steadiness that belonged to a household, to small bodies laid down and promised a morning.

  Finn made a small sound and rolled onto his side.

  Orla’s eyes fluttered. She fought sleep for several breaths, pride warring to stay awake, then her shoulders sank and her head tilted toward the pillow.

  Morgan repeated the lines, growing softer as he went, then sat for a moment longer as if to make sure the quiet held. Then he rose and stepped back into the hall.

  Lain followed him out, closing the bedroom door until it latched with a soft click. In the narrow hallway, with the children sleeping behind them and the smell of soup still clinging in the air, Morgan looked suddenly younger, stripped of his usual readiness. He rubbed a hand once over his face, then let it fall.

  “You’ve done this before for them,” Lain said, quietly.

  Morgan nodded. “Yes. For them, And for my own.”

  The admission arrived in the bond with an aching tenderness. She pictured him in some other house, in some other life, two children with his eyes. There would be small hands grabbing at his sleeves and his slacks, voices demanding a story, a song, another minute of his attention.

  It was a domestic dream. Lain had been having many of those lately.

  Lain slid her fingers into his, and held his hand as if it was the simplest act in the world, one she’d done a thousand times in a life that belonged to her.

  Morgan gasped. He looked down at their joined hands, then back up at her. His fingers tightened around hers, carefully, as if afraid to break the spell of it. Behind them, the house held its warmth. Ahead, the world waited. But for a breath or two, Lain didn’t care.