Page 198 of Dark Night of the Soul

She glanced at the men standing guard, then back to the river.

“Sometimes I don’t remember the words after. But I remember how it feels when she reads. Like the noise goes quiet for a while.”

My throat tightened. “Grace does things like that,” I whispered.

Grace. Taking care of everyone. Always.

A faint smile touched my mother’s mouth. “Then she’s exactly who you needed. When you were growing up.”

It wrecked me, hearing her say that. Because she understood what happened to me now. Not in a distant, abstract way. In the way a mother knows when she finds the missing piece and it’s her own absence.

She knew I’d been left behind. That someone else had raised me. That my childhood had gone on without her while she was trapped inside a name that wasn’t hers, in a life that wasn’t real.

And there was something in her voice that sounded like acceptance and apology braided together, quiet enough that she didn’t have to ask for forgiveness to mean it.

Hearing that Grace had been with her let me believe my mother wasn’t alone in that house. Not while I was gone. Not while I was hunting monsters and pretending it wasn’t taking pieces of me with it.

It had taken everything.

Her gaze held mine. “But even when I am afraid, I still trust you.”

A Psalm. It hit me hard. I stopped breathing.

My throat tightened as I nodded. The river kept moving beside us, indifferent and steady, like it had never heard the word alteration in its life.

When I glanced up, Kincade was exactly where he promised he’d be. Still, vigilant, refusing to let the world touch me while I held my mother’s hand.

That’s what home was going to be now.

He hadn’t brought me here to be brave.

He’d brought me here so I wouldn’t have to be.

Chapter 51 | Kincade

The drive back to the villa was quiet. She shut herself down and stared out the window the entire way. We all understood something profound had happened between her and her mother on that bench, and none of us were going to break the moment.

She didn’t look fragile, though. She was holding herself together with willpower and stubbornness and resolve. Like she’d stopped fighting reality long enough to see it clearly. Like she’d made a decision about what came next.

And once Anna Walker decided, the world usually had two choices—adapt or get crushed.

It was late afternoon when we arrived. She went in first and disappeared into the villa without looking back. The others scattered on instinct. Ludwig to the perimeter, Ulrich to the inside.

I found her where I knew she’d go.

The courtyard doors were flung open. She stood near the fountain with her back to me, hands loose at her sides, dark hair spilling down her back. She still wore her coat. Shoulders tight. Spine rigid.

I knew what she was doing—replaying every word.

I started to open the bond, then didn’t. I let her keep her moment.

I should have backed away. Left her alone. But I’d watched her out there by the river. How hard she’d worked not to fall apart. And I wasn’t going to make her do that part alone.

I stepped into the courtyard, letting my boots scuff the stone on purpose so she’d hear me coming.

She didn’t turn.

“Rain is in the air,” she said. “Do you feel it?”