Meeting Lilith was unlike anything Glad expected.
She was beautiful—ageless, like all aswangs—with Glad's eyes, her smile, the same nervous habit of wing-twitching.
"You came," Lilith breathed.
"You're my mother."
"I am. I'm so sorry I wasn't—"
"Stop." Glad held up a hand. "I don't know what happened. Why you weren't there. But I've learned, over these years, not to judge without understanding."
Lilith's eyes filled with tears. "The witch who turned you—she wasn't working alone. She had help. People who wanted to hurt me by hurting you. They would have killed us both if I'd stayed."
"So you left? To protect me?"
"I left you with a human family who could keep you safe. And I watched. From afar. Always watching. Never able to approach."
"Like Anino."
"Like... who?"
Glad explained—her supernatural father, his fifty years of silent protection. Lilith listened, astonished.
"He loved you enough to become a cat?"
"He loved me enough to do whatever it took."
Lilith was quiet for a long moment. "I loved you enough to stay away. I don't know which is braver."
"Both. Neither. Love isn't a competition." Glad took her mother's hand. "You're here now. That's what matters."
They talked for hours—about centuries of separation, about the lives they'd lived, about the family they might become.
By sunset, they were holding each other, crying and laughing and beginning.
Beginning again.
Together.