Page 42 of Little Witch

"I missed having someone to make them at." Something more serious crept back into his expression. "I know this isn't the life I would've chosen for you, if I'd had any choice in any of it. The magic, the danger, all of it. I spent years down here hating that I couldn't protect you from any of this the way I wanted to."

"You gave me the locket. You did protect me. For as long as you could."

"I bought you time." He shook his head slightly. "Wasn't the same as actually being there. Wasn't the same as watching you grow up, or teaching you to drive, or walking you down the aisle someday, whenever and to however many people that ends up being."

"Dad."

"I'm serious. If it's both of them, properly, permanently, I want an invitation. I don't care how many grooms are involved. I want cake, I want a speech, and I reserve the right to embarrass you exactly the way any father would."

"We haven't exactly gotten that far."

"You will." He said it with such simple certainty that I almost believed it outright, despite everything currently standing between us and any kind of ordinary future. "I've seen the way they look at you. That's not a temporary thing, Amber. That's the kind of look that doesn't go away."

We worked in silence a while longer after that, gathering the last of what the list needed — moonpetal, three sprigs of something called ashroot that stung faintly against bare skin, a small jar of crushed stone that glittered faintly gold even in the dim greenhouse light.

"Can I tell you something else?" I asked, once we'd nearly filled the basket.

"Anything."

"I'm scared this doesn't work. The spell." My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "I'm scared we do all this, wait for the full moon, and nothing happens, and we're just stuck here. Forever. All five of us, growing old in a fake garden with a fake sky."

Dad set the basket down and pulled me into a hug without hesitation, the same solid, steady hug I remembered from being small enough to fit entirely inside his arms.

"Then we try again," he said simply, into my hair. "And again, if we have to. I spent years in here without you, without your mother, without any real hope of getting out at all. What I did get, all this time, was a son I never had before — Cian's become that to me, every bit as much as if I'd raised him from nothing. And now I've got a daughter down here with me too, for the first time since I lost her to the outside world. If this spell doesn't work, we'll have five of us looking for the next answer instead of two. Those are better odds than I've had in a very long time."

I let myself lean into him a moment longer, breathing in the same warm, earthy smell I remembered from childhood, steadier now than it had been the day we'd first found each other again.

"Can I ask you something else?" I said, pulling back slightly.

"Always."

"What did you want? When you first got trapped down here. If you'd gotten out that very first day — what was the one thing you wanted most?"

He didn't need to think about it. "To hug you. That was it. Not freedom, not the town, not even your mother, God forgive me for saying that out loud. Just you. One more hug." He reached up, brushing a strand of hair back from my face the way he used to when I was small enough to still let him fuss over me without complaint. "So if this spell doesn't work, Amber, if none of it comes together the way we're hoping — I've already had my wish. There's nothing else for it. I got exactly what I asked for, years too late, but I got it."

My throat closed up entirely. He patted the top of my head once, gentle, the same gesture from a hundred childhood memories, and picked the basket back up like he hadn't just leveled me completely.

I wasn't willing to let it end there. Not after everything.

"I'm getting you out," I said, voice fierce even through the tears threatening to spill over. "Both of you. I don't care what it takes. You're going to feel actual sun on your face again, Dad. I'm not letting you spend one more year down here just because you've decided a hug was enough to make peace with."

Something soft and proud moved across his face, grief and hope tangled together in equal measure. "I believe you."

"You should. I'm extremely stubborn. You raised me."

"That I did." He nudged me toward the door with his shoulder, basket balanced between us. "Now, let's get this inside before Orias eats through half our moonpetal supply thinking it's a snack."

"He would absolutely do that."

"He struck me as exactly that sort of young man within ten minutes of him being down here." Dad's smile came back, softer now, but real. "Come on. Three days until the full moon. Let's make them count."

Chapter Twenty Three

The air felt charged as we stood in the Sanctum's main room, surrounded by everything we'd spent the last few days gathering. Rowan, Orias and I had spent hours poring over the old text, making sure we had every last piece — the herbs, the stones, the candles, the runes carefully etched into the floor beneath us. Cian and Dad had worked just as hard, preparing the space, adding whatever they'd picked up from years of reading these same shelves.

This was it. The spell to balance everything. To reset the Hollow.

And if it worked, we'd finally be free.