Page 54 of Roaring Spell

“It’s complicated.”

I reach for her hand. “Their loss. Not yours.”

She stares at me. “No one has ever said that before.”

“Then everyone else got it wrong.”

The fire crackles. The cabin is warm. And Sakura looks at me like I’ve given her a gift she didn’t know she needed.

“You really mean that.”

“I mean everything I say to you.” I squeeze her hand gently. “Your family didn’t know what they had. Their inability to handle your power says nothing about you.”

“I’m a lot.”

“You’re exactly right.”

Her eyes shine.

“Torin—”

“You don’t have to say anything.” I hold her gaze. “Just know. I see you. All of you. The storms and the sunshine. And I’m not going anywhere.”

She squeezes my hand. Doesn’t let go. And for a long moment, we just sit there—her in my reading chair, me propped against pillows and the fire crackling between us.

“Grandmother Peach would be unbearable if she could see this.”

“Grandmother Peach can probably see this. Her information network is terrifying.”

“Do you think she’s really three hundred years old?”

“I think the mist knows things that predate most records in Mistvale. And she’s connected to the mist in ways no one fully understands.” I consider. “Three hundred seems conservative, honestly.”

“That’s unsettling.”

“Most things about Grandmother Peach are unsettling. But she’s also never been wrong about a matching. Not once in living memory.”

Sakura is quiet for a moment. “Does that mean... has she said anything about us?”

“She delivered cobbler and told me to stop emotionally constipating myself.”

“That’s not romantic advice.”

“For Grandmother Peach, it is.”

She laughs—a real laugh, warm and surprised—and the sound sinks into my bones like comfort.

She finds the journal while I’m dozing.

I drift off against my pillows, lulled by the fire’s warmth and her presence. When I wake, she’s holding a leather-bound notebook.

My stomach drops.

“I found this behind the poetry books.” Her voice is careful. “I thought it was a published collection.” She turns a page, and something shifts in her expression—a recognition she wasn’t quite prepared for. “Leire mentioned you wrote. She didn’t mention it was like this.”

“It’s not.”

“I noticed.” She turns another page. “Did you write all of these?”