Page 215 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Different dad,” I say. “Same dad, actually, it’s⁠—”

“You know what—” She places the strip of photos directly into his waiting skelva. “I’ve got a raccoon who commits insurance fraud. This is fine.”

Ashán doesn’t hear a word of it. He accepts the paper strip with unprecedented gentleness, cradling it at the edges. “Hello, angel. There you are.”

Elena walks us outside, Penelope trailing behind us, sneaking bites of leaves from the back of Sage’s calves. At the edge of the gravel lot, I catch her hand.

“Can I ask you something? That day in the meadow—you could barely hold your net. You were shaking so hard. And today you handed a sonogram to a…” I gesture vaguely at the guys. “You’re so much better with all of this. How?”

Elena laughs, her fist coming up to rub over her chest like it did the first time we met. “Honestly? I have no idea. I’ve thought about that a lot, actually.” She shrugs, something puzzled in her smile. “It’s the weirdest thing. I just feel… completely at ease. Like—” she huffs, searching for the words. “—like walking into a house that smells like a childhood I don’t remember having. I know that sounds insane.”

“It really doesn’t,” I whisper.

“Come back soon, okay?” She squeezes my hand. “I want to check on our sweet pea again at the next milestone. And next time, I’m stocking the good tissues. The ones with lotion. This is a lotion-tissue family.”

She pulls me into a warm hug. The pull I felt months ago snaps into focus. It pours through the place where her heart presses near mine. I know exactly which Horseman is coming for Elena Mercer.

CHAPTER 61

mark, stop!

—SAGE

“Absolutely not,” I say. “You cannot name her that.”

“Why not?”

Eden is sprawled across the sunroom nest like she’s been poured there, the book of name meanings Therael brought her balanced on the top of her bump. “It means gift from gods, which she literally is. It’s dogmatic.”

“You mean thematic, sweetheart,” Ashán corrects.

“It’s also the name of the goat,” I murmur.

“... Your goat?”

“If by my goat you mean the one that screams at me every time we go to Elena’s—then yes. I love that you want to name our daughter after a goat that has personally threatened my life.”

“Ignore him, Eden. He takes after his mentor… remember the baby swan?” Ash winks at her.

Eden laughs so hard that tears start spilling down her face. Which is honestly happening at an alarming rate these days. Droot cracks an eye open from where he’s been asleep on the windowsill. Once he decides the noise isn’t a threat to his fruit bowl, he goes back to sleep. The kettle hisses from the kitchen. The morning is slow and full of her giggles, and I am crouched at the edge of the nest pretending to be exasperated when I would really let her name our daughter after a hundred screaming goats if it meant she’d keep making that sound.

“Okay.” She wipes her eyes. “Not the goat name. But we have to pick something, Sage. I’m five and a half months pregnant, and Elena thinks we’ll run even shorter than a regular pregnancy.”

Pain shoots through the back of my skull as I reach to steal the book off her belly. The world around me whites out and I go down. My body smacks the floor, and the name book lands open beside me. I stare at the pages without seeing them, while something cold and white starts to float behind my eyes.

“Sage? Oh my god, your head is bleeding. I’ve got the dust right here in my pocket.” I can hear her scrabbling around to grab the pouch. “Hold on, Vaelí. I’ve got you. I’m so sorry, Ashán. I have to.”

As the cold spreads over my body, some ancient part of me wakes up for the first time.

This time we go all the way down, it whispers.

The dust hits the back of my throat, and I wait for the vision to evaporate the way it always does. But the cold doesn’t soften this time. Something grabs the back of my neck and shoves me down into the snow.

When I stand back up, the cold bites through a coat that isn’t mine. The hands in front of my face don’t belong to me. They’re pale and narrow with a thin white scar across my left knuckle.

The wind howls through the pines, nipping at my face. There’s a woman running through the trees. Dark hair streaming behind her, breath fogging the chilly air. She stumbles blindly in the deep drifts.

But this time I’m not chasing her—she’s chasing me.