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“You’re alive?” he asks.

A watery laugh escapes me. “It appears that way.”

His mouth trembles, then he laughs. The sound lasts only a second until another sob catches him, and he pulls me against his chest again.

I close my eyes.

I’m home.

We stay that way until my arms begin to ache and neither of us has any tears left. Even when we finally separate, my father keeps one hand wrapped around my arm, reluctant to let go completely.

“How did you get away?” he asks.

I look down at his hand around my arm. “I … I didn’t get away.”

He holds me even tighter.

“He let me go.”

My father stares at me long enough that I finally look up.

“He let you go?”

I nod.

“That horrible, monstrous Beast let you go?”

My shoulders tense at the word, and my father notices immediately.

“He’s different now, Dad,” I say quietly.

His brows pull together.

“He’s…” I glance toward the open doorway without meaning to.

The road beyond it is empty. Rhys is gone. The realization that I can’t see him leaves me aching.

“He changed.”

My father continues staring at me, but I don’t know how to explain months inside that castle when I barely understand them myself. I don’t know how to explain that the same man who terrified me taught me how to plant my first cherry seed. I don’t know how to reconcile the locked doors with the nights spent telling stories beside his fire, or the monster who refused to let me leave with the man who finally rode away without me.

Eventually, we go outside together.

Warm sunlight falls across my face as I lead Bramble toward the barn, and my father walks beside me. I keep glancing at him when I think he isn’t looking.

He’s better.

Not merely alive.

Better.

There’s more weight on him than when I left, and his shoulders no longer look like his shirt is hanging from bone. He still moves carefully, but there’s strength behind his steps now. When he reaches up to help me with Bramble’s saddle, his hands don’t tremble under the weight.

“You’re well,” I say.

He looks at me. “Much better.”

I continue staring until he gives me a questioning look, then turn back to Bramble.