In the morning room, the adults gathered while the house remained shrouded in the early evening's quiet.
Jane sat by the window, her tea forgotten and cooling on the small table beside her. A thin, grey film had begun to form over the dark liquid. Seraphina sat in her usual high-backed chair, her hands folded neatly in her lap, the dark green yarn of her knitting momentarily abandoned. Aldric stood by the mantel with his back to the low fire, his face half-hidden in the flickering, orange-tinted shadows.
"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 said. His voice remained calm, but a resonance sat underneath the steady tone—a weight of pride and worry that came from watching his children return from the edges of the world.
"She found something," Seraphina said. Her voice stayed quiet, but her fingers pressed into the fabric on her thighs. "The letter said she found something."
Jane picked up her tea, looked at the stagnant liquid, and set it down again without drinking. "The Starlight Phoenix. The Binding of Cold Light. She found a woman who was born with the same thing Morwenna has, and that woman is ninety years old."
"Ninety," Seraphina repeated. A strange look crossed her face as she processed the longevity.
"She said the stone is coming separately," Jack said from the doorway. He had come down while they were talking, his footsteps silent on the wooden floorboards. "The monks are sending it in their own way. Through the earth, not the air."
No one asked for a deeper explanation. There weren't things in the world that didn't need explaining immediately. The stone will arrive when the earth sees fit to deliver it.
"Saoirse is going to tell her something," Jane said, her green eyes tracking the dust motes in the window's fading light. "Something special, she said. She winked at her before they went upstairs."
Seraphina made a small sound—a soft, 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 down across from Jane, his hands resting loose on the table's mahogany surface. "She is going to tell Morwenna about the mundane world. The real part; the part we haven't told her. She will tell her the part that's fun, not just the preparation."
Jane looked at him, her brow furrowing. "How do you know?"
"Because that's exactly what Saoirse would do." He smiled, a small and fond expression. "She is going to tell her about the swings that go so high you can see the whole park. She will describe the ice cream that comes in trucks with music made of sharp, tinkling bells. She will tell her about the things you aren't supposed to do—the things you are supposed to learn by doing them anyway."
Jane's hands curled tight around her cup. "That isn't safe."
"No," Jack agreed. "It isn't. But it's what she needs. The preparation has been all of us, telling her what she needs to know. The experience will be Saoirse, showing her what she needs to feel."
"She is going to be different," Seraphina said. Her voice stayed very quiet. "After Saoirse is done with her, she is going to be different."
Jane looked at her mother-in-law. Seraphina's face stayed perfectly still, her hands folded again, but there was a flash 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 done. That's what she has always done."
"She is going to make Morwenna louder," Seraphina said. "She is going to make her run faster and ask more questions and laugh at things that aren't funny to anyone else."
Jane thought about her daughter. She thought about how Morwenna had been these past months: quiet, watchful, her questions always measured. She thought about the way Morwenna's body had hummed when she thought no one was looking, the silly laugh that escaped when she was alone, and the way she ran down the corridor when she thought she was unobserved.
"She is already loud," Jane said. "She has been loud. We haven't been listening."
No one answered. The fire crackled in the grate. The clock on the wall ticked with heavy precision.
Upstairs, in the room that had been hers since she was a small girl, Saoirse was sleeping deeply. Somewhere in the nursery, Morwenna was waiting, her body coiled, her mind full of winking eyes and secrets.
. . .
Morwenna had woken early, long before the sun, before Tilly, and before anyone else moved in the manor. She had lain in bed with Cinder beside her, watching the grey light seep through the gaps in the curtains, and she had waited. She didn't know exactly what she was waiting for, but she knew she couldn't sleep anymore.
She found Saoirse sitting at the table with a cup of steaming tea and a slice of toast. Saoirse's hair stayed wet from a bath, and her face still carried the deep shadows of too many nights without sleep.
"Couldn't you sleep either?" Saoirse said.
Morwenna shook her head, her white hair messy. "Is Cinder asleep?"
Saoirse laughed, a soft and low sound. "Come here, little monster."
Morwenna crossed the room and climbed onto the chair beside Saoirse. It was a big chair meant for adults, and she had to push herself up, her small arms straining until she reached the seat. Saoirse didn't help her. She just watched with her chin on her hand, her green eyes following each of Morwenna's movements.
When Morwenna was settled, 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 felt thick, golden, and sweet on her tongue.
"The mundane world," Saoirse said. Her voice was different now; it's the voice she used for things that truly mattered.
Morwenna nodded, her mouth full of honeyed toast.
"They have been telling you about it. They gave you the books, the pictures, and the rules."
"They told you the things you need to know. They told you how to cross the street, what things are called, and how to be safe." She paused, her gaze intensifying. "They didn't tell you the fun parts."
Morwenna swallowed the bite of toast. Her heart beat with a sudden quickness that wasn't fear, but something brighter.
"There are swings," Saoirse said. "In the parks. They aren't magical swings. They don't float or fly on their own. But if you pump your legs just right, if you lean back and let the chains hold you, you can go so high that your stomach drops and the world turns sideways. For one second, you are flying."
Morwenna's hands had stopped moving. The toast sat forgotten in her lap.
"There are carousels with painted horses that go up and down. They have lights that flash and music that plays the same song over and over until it's stuck in your head for a week. There are ice cream trucks that drive through the streets playing bells.
You run out with money in your hand, and the man at the window has a white hat. He asks what flavour you want, and you can pick any flavour you want—as many as you want. It doesn't matter if it's too cold or too sweet, because that's what summer is for."
Saoirse leaned forward. Her elbows sat on her knees, her hands loose. Her eyes were bright with an infectious energy.
"Your parents told you the rules. They told you how to be safe. I'm going to tell you how to be there. Really there. I will show you the way you are supposed to be when you are four years old and the world is brand new."
Morwenna's body hummed. She couldn't feel the vibration in her bones and in the space behind her eyes. She set the toast down carefully on the plate.
"When?" she asked. Her voice came out small and high.
Saoirse grinned. The sharpness returned to her features.
"When your birthday comes. When you are four. When the rules say you can walk out the front door and see the world for what it is." She reached out and tapped Morwenna's nose with a 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's hands came up instinctively. They grabbed Saoirse's wrist and held her. "What parts?"
"All of them." Saoirse's voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. "The carousel with the horse that is painted gold. The slide that is 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 works it has a moustache that twitches when he talks, and he will give you an extra scoop if you ask nice."
Morwenna's laugh escaped. It was loud and silly. Saoirse laughed too, and their voices tangled together in the morning room, bouncing off the stone walls and filling the space where the light turned to gold. Cinder's ears swivelled toward them. His tail thumped rhythmically against the floorboards.
"Saoirse," Morwenna said, her voice stronger and brighter.
Saoirse raised her black eyebrows. "Yes?"
"Are you going to teach me how to climb trees?"
Saoirse's face changed. The mischief stayed, but underneath was a look of recognition.
"I'm going to teach you how to climb the tallest tree in the biggest park in London," she said. "And then I'm going to teach you how to get down without breaking anything."
Morwenna nodded. Her hand stayed on Saoirse's wrist, her fingers wrapped around the bone. "Good," she said.
. . .
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. Morwenna was in her lap, leaning against her chest, with a book open in front of them. It was one of the mundane books, the one with the carousel on the cover and the painted horses frozen in their colourful circle.
Saoirse was reading aloud. Her voice was louder and faster than Jane's or Jack's. She made the horses sound as if they were really moving. She made the music sound as if it were really playing in the room. She leaned down and whispered something in Morwenna's ear, and Morwenna's laugh burst out, bright and uncontained.
Jane stood in the doorway and watched them. She watched the way Morwenna's hand reached up to touch Saoirse's face, tracing the line of her jaw, and the way she leaned into her. She watched the way Saoirse's arms wrapped around the girl, holding her close. She was holding her like something precious that had been lost and found and lost again.
She thought about what Seraphina had said. She is going to be different. She thought about what Aldric had said. That is what she has always done.
She thought about her daughter, who had spent three years being steady and quiet and brave. She was the girl who had counted snowdrops and spoken to serpents and held frost in her palm.
She looked at her daughter now, laughing in Saoirse's lap, her body loose and her eyes bright. She watched the way Morwenna's hands moved, quick and sure, turning the pages of the book before Saoirse had finished reading.
Jane stepped back from the doorway. She didn't go in. She stood in the corridor with her back against the cold stone, and she listened to her daughter laugh. Cinder came out from the library a moment later. He sat at her feet, his ears pricked and his amber eyes fixed on her face. She reached down and touched his head, feeling the warmth of his fur and his heart's steady beat.
"She is going to be fine," Jane said. The words came out quiet, almost a whisper. "She is going to be loud and wild and she is going to climb trees and eat too much ice cream and she is going to be fine."
Cinder's ears swivelled toward the library. His tail thumped once against the wall.
Jane smiled. "I know," she said.
She pushed off from the wall and walked back toward the morning room. Behind her, Saoirse's voice rose and fell, telling Morwenna about the carousel, about the painted horses, and about the way the world looked when you were going fast enough to leave it behind.