Mira waited until the twins were asleep.
Not because what she had to say required it more because she wanted Aelara's full attention, and Aelara's full attention was not something that existed when either of her children was awake and within reach. That was simply the reality of being their mother, and Mira had been watching long enough over the years to understand it, even from a distance she never chose to love.
She set a box on the table between them. Plain wood, old, the kind of thing that looked like it held nothing important and therefore survived exactly because it looked that way.
Aelara had seen her father keep things like this. He used to say the safest hiding place was something too ordinary to be worth opening. She hadn't thought about that in years. It landed now with the specific ache of a memory you didn't know you still had until something pried it loose.
Mira opened the box without ceremon.
She laid the contents out flat on the table,
