Morning came quickly.
Julian was already awake when the light began to gather at the edges of the curtains. He had not slept much, but he did not feel the lack of it. He felt, instead, the clean and unfamiliar sensation of a man who had nothing left to dread.
He reached for his phone, stepped quietly out of the bedroom so as not to wake Amara or the babies, and called his mother.
She picked up on the second ring, which meant she had been awake already.
"Julian." Her voice carried that particular maternal frequency that communicated everything before the words did.
"She is home, Mother," he said. "Justina is home."
There was a silence on the other end that lasted long enough to mean something. Then Madam Vale exhaled, and the sound of it travelled through the phone like the release of a breath she had been holding for months.
"Bring them to me," she said finally, her voice thick with something she was not bothering to compose. "Bring all of them."
