In the morning room, the adults gathered while the manor settled into the quiet of early evening.
Jane sat by the window, her tea forgotten and cooling on the small table beside her. A thin gray film had begun to form on the dark liquid.
Seraphina sat in her usual high-backed chair, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her dark green knitting abandoned for the moment. Aldric stood by the mantel with his back to the low fire, his face half-hidden in the flickering orange light.
"She is thinner," Jane said, her voice barely audible. "Her hands are cracked from the cold. She said she didn't sleep for a month."
"She did what she needed to do," Aldric replied. His voice was calm, but beneath it lay a mixture of pride and worry, the feelings of a father who had watched his children venture to the edges of the world and return.
"She found something," Seraphina said quietly. Her fingers pressed into the fabric over her thighs. "The letter said she found something."
Jane picked up her tea, glanced at the cold liquid, and set it down again without drinking. "The Starlight Phoenix. The Binding of Cold Light. She found a woman born with the same thing Morwenna has, and that woman is ninety years old."
"Ninety," Seraphina repeated, a strange expression crossing her face as she considered what that meant.
"She said the stone is coming separately," Jack said from the doorway. He had come downstairs while they were talking, his footsteps silent on the wooden floorboards. "The monks are sending it their own way. Through the earth, not the air."
No one asked him to explain further. Some things in the world didn't need an immediate explanation. The stone would arrive when the earth was ready to deliver it.
"Saoirse is going to tell her something," Jane said, her green eyes following the dust motes drifting through the fading light. "Something special, she said. She winked at her before they went upstairs."
Seraphina gave a small, dry laugh. "That child."
"She isn't a child," Aldric said firmly. "She is thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight. She has climbed mountains no one else has dared to climb. She has found answers we couldn't find in all our books."
"She is still a child," Seraphina insisted. "She has always been a child. To me, she will always be a child."
No one argued with her.
Jack sat across from Jane, resting his hands loosely on the mahogany table. "She is going to tell Morwenna about the mundane world. The real part, the things we haven't told her. She will tell her about the fun, not just the preparations."
Jane looked at him, her brow furrowing. "How do you know?"
"Because that's exactly what Saoirse would do." He smiled fondly. "She will tell her about swings that go so high you can see the whole park. She will describe ice cream trucks with music made of sharp, tinkling bells. She will tell her about the things you aren't supposed to do, the things you learn by doing them anyway."
Jane's fingers tightened around her cup. "That isn't safe."
"No," Jack agreed. "It isn't. But it's what she needs. We have all been preparing her, telling her what she needs to know. Saoirse will give her the experience, showing her what she needs to feel."
"She is going to be different," Seraphina said, her voice very quiet. "After Saoirse is done with her, she is going to be different."
Jane turned to her mother-in-law. Seraphina's face remained still, her hands folded once more, but there was a flicker of recognition in her eyes.
"Saoirse rubs off on people," Jane said.
"Saoirse rubs off on everything she touches," Aldric added. "That's what she has always done."
"She is going to make Morwenna louder," Seraphina continued. "She will make her run faster, ask more questions, and laugh at things that aren't funny to anyone else."
Jane thought about her daughter and how she had been over the past few months. Morwenna was quiet and watchful, and even her questions seemed carefully measured.
Yet Jane remembered how her daughter's body hummed when she thought no one was looking, how she laughed at silly things when she was alone, and how she ran down the corridor whenever she believed no one could see her.
"She is already loud," Jane said. "She always has been. We just haven't been listening."
No one answered. The fire crackled in the grate, and the clock on the wall ticked with steady precision.
Upstairs, in the room that had been hers since she was a little girl, Saoirse slept deeply. Somewhere in the nursery, Morwenna was waiting, her body full of restless energy and her mind occupied with winking eyes and secrets.
. . .
Morwenna had woken early, long before the sun rose, before Tilly stirred, and before anyone else moved through the manor. She lay in bed with Cinder beside her, watching gray light seep through the gaps in the curtains. She waited, though she didn't know exactly what she was waiting for. She only knew she couldn't sleep anymore.
She found Saoirse sitting at the table with a steaming cup of tea and a slice of toast. Her hair was still damp from her bath, and deep shadows remained beneath her eyes from too many nights without sleep.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Saoirse asked.
Morwenna shook her head, her white hair sticking out in every direction. "Is Cinder asleep?"
Saoirse laughed softly. "Come here, little monster."
Morwenna crossed the room and climbed onto the chair beside her. It was a large chair meant for adults, and she had to push herself up, straining with her small arms until she managed to reach the seat.
Saoirse didn't help her. She simply rested her chin on one hand and watched Morwenna's every movement with her eyes.
Once Morwenna had settled herself, Saoirse pushed her plate across the table. It held toast with honey, cut into neat triangles. Morwenna took one and bit into it. The honey was thick, golden, and sweet on her tongue.
"The mundane world," Saoirse said.
Her voice had changed. She was speaking the way she did when something truly mattered.
Morwenna nodded, her mouth full of honeyed toast.
"They have been telling you about it. They have given you the books, the pictures, and all the rules."
She paused to let Morwenna swallow before continuing.
"They have told you what you need to know. How to cross the street, what things are called, and how to stay safe." Her gaze sharpened with excitement. "But they haven't told you about the fun parts."
Morwenna swallowed her bite of toast. Her heart began to beat faster, not with fear but with something brighter.
"There are swings in the parks," Saoirse began. "They aren't magical. They don't float or fly by themselves. But if you pump your legs just right, lean back, and let the chains hold you, you can swing so high that your stomach drops and the whole world seems to turn sideways. For one second, you will feel as though you are flying."
Morwenna stopped moving. The toast lay forgotten in her lap.
"There are carousels with painted horses that move up and down. They have flashing lights and music that plays the same song over and over until you can't get it out of your head for a week. Then there are ice cream trucks that drive through the streets, playing little bells.
You run out with money in your hand, and the man at the window wears a white hat. He asks what flavor you want, and you can choose whichever one you like. You can even have more than one. It doesn't matter if it's too cold or too sweet. That's what summer is for."
Saoirse leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Her hands hung loosely between them, and her eyes shone with an excitement that was impossible not to catch.
"Your parents have taught you the rules and shown you how to stay safe. I'm going to teach you how to be there. How to really be there. I will show you what it's like to be four years old and see the world as if everything is brand new."
Morwenna could feel the familiar hum building inside her, vibrating through her bones and into the space behind her eyes. She carefully placed her toast back on the plate.
"When?" she asked, her voice small and high.
Saoirse grinned, the familiar sharpness returning to her features.
"When your birthday comes. When you turn four. When the rules say you can walk out the front door and see the world for yourself." She reached over and tapped Morwenna's nose with one finger.
"I'm going to take you. Me, not your parents. They will be there, of course, hovering and worrying, but I'm the one who is going to show you the good parts."
Morwenna instinctively reached for Saoirse's wrist and held it. "What parts?"
"All of them." Saoirse lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The carousel with the golden horse. The slide so tall you can see the whole park from the top. The ice cream truck that comes at four o'clock every day. The man who runs it has a mustache that twitches when he talks, and he will give you an extra scoop if you ask nicely."
Morwenna burst into laughter, loud and silly. Saoirse joined her, and their voices mingled in the morning room, bouncing off the stone walls as the rising sunlight filled the space with gold.
Cinder's ears turned toward them, and his tail thumped rhythmically against the floorboards.
"Saoirse," Morwenna said, her voice stronger and brighter now.
Saoirse raised her black eyebrows. "Yes?"
"Are you going to teach me how to climb trees?"
Saoirse's expression changed. The mischief remained, but beneath it was a look of recognition, as if she had been waiting for Morwenna to ask exactly that.
"I'm going to teach you how to climb the tallest tree in the biggest park in London," she said. "Then I will teach you how to get back down without breaking anything."
Morwenna nodded, her fingers still wrapped around Saoirse's wrist. "Good."
. . .
That afternoon, Jane found them in the library.
Saoirse sat on the floor with her back against the dark wooden shelves and her legs stretched out in front of her.
Morwenna sat in her lap, leaning against her chest, with a book open between them. It was one of the books about the mundane world, the one with a carousel on the cover and painted horses arranged in a colorful circle.
Saoirse was reading aloud. Her voice was louder and livelier than Jane's or Jack's, and she made the horses sound as though they were really moving. She described the music as if it were playing right there in the library.
Every so often, she leaned down to whisper something in Morwenna's ear, making the little girl burst into another bright, unrestrained laugh.
Jane stood in the doorway and watched them.
She watched Morwenna reach up to touch Saoirse's face, tracing the line of her jaw, and the way she leaned comfortably against her. She watched Saoirse wrap her arms around the girl and hold her close, as though Morwenna were something precious she had lost, found, and feared losing again.
Jane thought about what Seraphina had said. She is going to be different.
She remembered Aldric's words, too. That's what she has always done.
Then she looked at her daughter, who had spent the past three years being quiet, steady, and brave. The little girl who counted snowdrops, spoke to serpents, and held frost in her palm.
Now Morwenna was laughing in Saoirse's lap, her body relaxed and her eyes bright. Her hands moved quickly as she turned the pages before Saoirse had even finished reading them.
Jane stepped away from the doorway without going inside. She leaned against the cold stone wall in the corridor and listened to her daughter laugh.
A moment later, Cinder emerged from the library and settled at her feet. His ears were pricked, and his amber eyes fixed on her face. Jane reached down to stroke his head, feeling the warmth of his fur and the steady beat of his heart beneath it.
"She is going to be fine," Jane whispered. "She is going to be loud and wild. She is going to climb trees and eat too much ice cream, and she is going to be fine."
Cinder turned his ears toward the library and thumped his tail once against the wall.
Jane smiled. "I know."
She pushed away from the wall and headed back toward the morning room. Behind her, Saoirse's voice rose and fell as she told Morwenna about the carousel, the painted horses, and the way the world looked when you were moving fast enough to leave everything else behind.