Chapter 102: What She Wanted to Tell Him

Isolde knew where the pencil was.

She knew because Dinraal had asked her twice already, and because it was tucked behind his ear.

The first time, she had told him.

The second time, she had watched him search the kitchen table with growing fascination.

Now he was lifting the breadboard.

“Has it fallen?”

“Possibly.”

He looked beneath the table.

The First Weapon opened one eye.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dinraal told him.

Isolde took a sip of tea.

The taste was wrong.

She lowered the cup.

Dinraal straightened, finally dislodging the pencil. It struck the table, rolled toward the edge, and disappeared into a waiting curl of silver before it could fall.

He looked at it.

Then at her.

“You knew.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since the first time you asked.”

“That was unkind.”

“It was educational.”

He smiled and sat beside her.

Between them lay a drawing of the clinic’s new covered entrance. The medical transport crew had asked for a wider turn beneath the roof so they could bring beds inside without exposing patients to the rain.

Dinraal had offered to help with the foundations.

Then someone had given him measurements.

Now there were four drawings, none of which agreed.

Isolde moved his cup away from the newest one.

“Take them to Halen.”

“I understand the measurements.”

“I know. Halen understands why they changed.”

He considered that.

Then folded the papers.

Outside, the school bell sounded.

The First Weapon lifted his head, apparently deciding the children offered better prospects than the kitchen.

He rose, pushed through the door, and carried a small rug halfway into the corridor beneath one foot.

Dinraal watched it go.

“That needs fixing.”

“The rug or him?”

“The rug seems more achievable.”

Isolde laughed.

Then the smell of the toast reached her, warm and ordinary, and her stomach tightened so abruptly that she had to stop.

Dinraal looked at her.

“Are you all right?”

She set the cup down carefully.

“Yes. I think so.”

He waited.

She could see him deciding whether to ask again.

“Perhaps I made the tea too strong,” she said.

“I made it.”

“That would explain it.”

He looked offended enough to make her smile.

But when he left for the workshop, carrying the drawings and wearing the pencil behind his ear again, she remained at the table.

After a while, she opened her notebook.

She turned back several pages.

Then she counted.

She did not go to Johanna immediately.

At first, that surprised her.

For weeks, possibility had occupied a quiet corner of their life. It sat beside the folded house drawing, beneath jokes about names, within the space they had cleared on the cupboard shelf.

Now, looking at the dates, she found she wanted a little time before possibility became something else.

She put the kettle back on.

Then turned it off.

She stood in the kitchen doorway and looked at the marks on the frame.

Her own.

Dinraal’s.

Aurelius’s crooked line.

The pencil had caught in a small imperfection in the wood beside his name. Dinraal had offered to sand it smooth. Aurelius had refused.

Isolde touched it with one finger.

Then she put on her coat.

There was work to do at the records room first. She had promised Sella she would help identify the children whose names had been recovered from the tender’s nursery wall.

A promise did not become unimportant because her own thoughts had grown louder.

The walk helped.

Hearth was damp from overnight rain. Water dripped from the school roof into the channel Meret had insisted they finish before winter. Adela stood outside her cottage arguing with someone about the placement of a bench.

Neither participant sounded distressed.

At the records room, Sella had laid the nursery panel across two padded supports.

The names were easier to read in daylight.

Some were written carefully.

Others had been scratched in haste.

Near the bottom, a small handprint had been traced in blue.

Isolde took off her coat.

“Where do you want me?”

Sella pointed toward a stack of passenger records.

“Here. And if you discover that any of these children used the same spelling twice, let me know. It would be a welcome novelty.”

They worked side by side.

For almost an hour, Isolde forgot to count anything except names.

Then a woman arrived with her son.

He was taller than Isolde expected.

The boy stopped beside the panel.

“That’s mine.”

His mother looked at the line he indicated.

“No. That’s the one above yours.”

He bent closer.

“Oh.”

Sella gave him a pencil and a separate sheet.

“Write it for us as you spell it now.”

He did.

His mother touched the lowest mark.

“You were furious that day.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You wanted to be as tall as your cousin.”

He studied the gap between the lines.

“Did I manage?”

“Eventually.”

They laughed together.

Isolde looked down at the list in front of her until the tightness in her throat passed.

When they left, she put her pencil on the table.

“Sella.”

The older woman glanced up.

“Could you manage without me for a little while?”

“Of course.”

“I need to see Johanna.”

Sella’s expression changed only enough to show she had heard.

“Take your coat. It’s colder than it looks.”

Isolde thanked her.

She did not explain.

Sella did not ask.

Johanna was washing her hands when Isolde arrived.

She looked over her shoulder.

“Come in.”

Isolde closed the door.

The small room seemed unusually bright. There was a vase on the windowsill containing three flowers and something that was probably a weed.

Mira’s work, most likely.

Johanna dried her hands.

“What’s happened?”

“I’m not certain.”

She said it more quietly than she intended.

Johanna pulled out a chair.

Isolde sat.

For a moment, she looked at the physician’s desk rather than her face.

Then she told her.

The dates.

The tea.

The strange aversion to breakfast.

How she had counted twice and then once more because she distrusted how much she wanted the answer.

Johanna listened.

When Isolde finished, she said, “We can check.”

Isolde nodded.

“Would you like Dinraal here?”

The question made her pause.

She pictured him at the workshop, frowning at the drawings while Halen explained why one wall had moved.

He would come immediately.

He would leave the pencil behind.

He would probably arrive carrying a measuring rod he had forgotten to put down.

She loved him so much that the thought hurt.

But she shook her head.

“Not yet.”

“All right.”

“I want to tell him.”

Johanna’s expression softened.

“Then we’ll see what there is to tell.”

There was no sudden movement of silver.

No distant voice.

No strange light announcing that the world had changed.

There was Johanna, asking questions and explaining what she was doing.

There was Isolde, sitting very still with her hands resting on her knees.

There was a pause that seemed much longer than it could have been.

Then Johanna turned toward her.

“Yes,” she said.

Isolde did not move.

The word was too small for the room it made inside her.

“Yes?”

“You’re pregnant.”

For several seconds, she could hear someone walking in the corridor.

A drawer opening next door.

Rain beginning again against the window.

“How certain?”

“Certain enough to tell you.”

Isolde looked down.

Her hands had not changed.

Her bracelets lay against her wrists.

The ring Aramaeis had made caught a thin line of daylight.

She pressed her lips together.

Johanna waited.

Then Isolde laughed once, breathlessly, and covered her mouth.

“Oh.”

Johanna smiled.

“Yes.”

The tears came afterward.

Isolde had not expected them.

She had expected questions.

She had several, somewhere.

For now, she could only sit there while Johanna passed her a clean cloth and let the news become real.

Dinraal spent the morning beneath a partly assembled roof.

It was not where he had expected the drawings to lead.

Halen stood beside him with a strip of wood, demonstrating how far a wheeled bed needed to turn before the people guiding it ran out of room.

“The wall isn’t the problem,” Halen said.

“You moved it twice.”

“Yes. Because the roof support was in the wrong place.”

“Then move the support.”

“I am moving the support.”

Dinraal looked up.

They both looked at the post currently resting against his shoulder.

“I see.”

“Excellent. We’re making progress.”

Dinraal held it while the workers repositioned the base.

The silver around his forearm had formed a broad cushion against the timber. His shoulder still ached from the tender, but Johanna had cleared him for this kind of work provided he behaved sensibly.

He suspected Halen had been given a more detailed version of that instruction.

“You can put it down now.”

“I’m fine.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

Dinraal lowered the post.

His communicator sounded.

Eve.

“Do you have a moment?”

He stepped out from under the roof.

“Yes.”

“We have the Tiran report.”

He looked toward the clinic door.

“Tell me.”

Tiran’s people had lived in halls cut into mountains.

Four hundred patients had been too ill to survive a hurried evacuation without help.

Sigmund had steadied them while the others carried them out.

For six hours.

Dinraal leaned against the unfinished rail.

“How many made it?”

“All four hundred.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“And the rest of the evacuation?”

“All,” Eve said.

He opened them.

She repeated it, perhaps because she understood.

“They brought everyone out.”

For a moment, he had nothing to say.

Around him, the clinic work continued. Halen called for another brace. Someone dropped a nail into the mud and swore at it.

Dinraal looked at the covered entrance.

Beds turning beneath the roof.

Hands keeping them level.

People who could not make the journey under their own strength.

“All,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Is Sigmund all right?”

“Exhausted afterward. Recovering.”

Dinraal rubbed his face.

“Thank you.”

“There are forty-seven worlds left on their list.”

He nodded, though she could not see him.

“I’ll come by later.”

“Bring Isolde. I think she’ll want to read this one.”

“Yes,” he said. “She will.”

When he returned to Halen, he was smiling.

The builder regarded him suspiciously.

“What?”

Dinraal told him.

Halen listened with the strip of wood still in his hands.

Then he looked at the entrance they were building.

“Well,” he said.

He set the strip down.

“Let’s make sure ours works.”

Isolde left the clinic with another appointment and more questions than she had brought.

Johanna had answered the ones she could.

She had not promised an ordinary timetable.

She had not predicted what the silver might mean.

She had said they would learn carefully, and that Isolde did not have to solve the next several months before leaving the room.

Isolde had been grateful for that.

Now she stood just inside the clinic entrance, watching Dinraal help guide a roof beam into place.

He had not seen her.

His coat hung over a stack of timber. One sleeve of his shirt had been rolled higher than the other. Mud streaked his boots.

He was smiling at something a worker had said.

For a moment, she wanted to call to him.

To say it there, across the yard, with Halen holding a brace and three workers looking up.

She almost did.

Then Dinraal shifted his grip, and she remembered how carefully he had folded the house drawing.

How he had admitted he already had names.

How he had tried not to watch her too closely whenever a message from Avalon mentioned another child.

She wanted a room where nobody needed him for anything else.

He looked up and saw her.

His smile widened.

“Finished?”

She came down the step.

“For now.”

“How did the records go?”

“We found two more names.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.”

He looked at her more closely.

“Is something wrong?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

It was the truth, but too small.

He waited.

She took his hand.

“Could you come home when you’re finished here?”

“Yes.”

“Before going to the relay room?”

He glanced toward his communicator.

“How did you know?”

“I know you.”

He smiled.

“An hour?”

She considered.

“An hour.”

Then she kissed him.

It was meant to be brief.

It was not.

Behind them, Halen cleared his throat.

“The beam remains interested in being held.”

Dinraal laughed against her mouth.

“Right.”

Isolde stepped back.

His hand lingered around hers.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She looked at him.

At the concern he was trying not to make burdensome.

At the hope he did not yet know he was allowed to have.

“Yes,” she said.

Then she went home.

The hour took much longer than an hour should.

Isolde swept the kitchen.

Then realized it did not need sweeping.

She set out two cups.

Put them away.

Took them out again.

The First Weapon followed her between rooms with increasing suspicion.

“I’m not hiding anything from you.”

He pushed his head against her hand.

She scratched him automatically.

Then stopped.

She looked down at him.

He looked back.

“No,” she said softly. “You don’t get to tell him first either.”

The creature sneezed.

She laughed and sat down on the floor beside him.

That helped.

For a while, she rested against his warmth and listened to the house.

There was a faint tick in the stove as it cooled.

A bird landed on the garden wall.

Someone passed outside, walking quickly through the rain.

She thought of the years before Hearth.

Of rooms she had never expected to keep.

Of wanting the next hour because the next year had been too large to ask for.

She had told Dinraal that on their wedding day.

Now she wondered how she could possibly hold all the wanting that had followed.

A knock sounded.

She stood too quickly.

It was Aurelius.

He held a book beneath his coat.

“I found the one you asked about.”

Isolde stared at him.

Then began to laugh.

His expression changed.

“Have I arrived at an unfortunate time?”

“No.”

“An unusual time?”

“Yes.”

He stepped inside, watching her.

She took the book.

Her hands shook.

Aurelius noticed, of course.

“Isolde?”

She looked up.

For a moment, she nearly told him.

He would be wonderful.

He would put the book down and hold her and say something so simple that she would remember it for the rest of her life.

But Dinraal was still at the clinic.

So she drew a careful breath.

“There’s something I need to tell Dinraal first.”

Aurelius became very still.

Then he nodded.

“Of course.”

She smiled through the sudden sting in her eyes.

“Could you come back this evening?”

“Yes.”

“Just you, for now.”

His own eyes had begun to brighten, though he did not ask a single question.

“Just me.”

At the door, he turned.

“Would you like me to find him?”

She shook her head.

“He said an hour.”

Aurelius glanced toward the road.

Then back at her.

“A dangerous promise from a man working with Halen.”

She laughed.

He smiled and left.

Isolde put the book on the table.

Then she sat beside the window and waited.

Dinraal arrived carrying bread.

He held it up before she could speak.

“I know I’m late.”

“Only a little.”

“Rhiannon intercepted me.”

“She usually does.”

“She said we looked underfed yesterday.”

“We had supper with her yesterday.”

“That was part of the accusation.”

He put the bread down.

Then stopped.

Isolde had risen from the window seat.

Something in her face made him forget the rest of the explanation.

“What is it?”

She came to him.

For a moment, she took both his hands without speaking.

His expression changed.

“Isolde?”

“I went to Johanna.”

He glanced toward the door, as though the clinic might still be visible through it.

“Today?”

“Yes.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

He stopped asking.

She could see the possibility arrive.

He was afraid to touch it.

So she helped him.

“I’m pregnant.”

His hands tightened around hers.

Not painfully.

Just enough that she felt the answer travel through him before he could say anything.

She smiled.

“Dinraal.”

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Then looked down at their joined hands.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Johanna said?”

“Yes.”

He gave a small, broken laugh.

Then he was holding her.

So carefully at first that she almost laughed again.

She put her arms around his neck.

“You can hug me properly.”

He did.

Her feet stayed on the floor, but only just.

For a long time, neither spoke.

She felt his face against her hair.

His breathing.

The way his hand opened and closed once against her back as though he still could not quite believe she was there.

Then he drew back enough to look at her.

His eyes were wet.

She touched his cheek.

“Hello.”

He laughed again.

“Hello.”

“I had a much better speech while I was waiting.”

“I don’t think I could have survived a better one.”

She kissed him.

He kissed her back, then rested his forehead against hers.

“How do you feel?”

“Happy.”

“Yes?”

“And frightened.”

He nodded.

“So am I.”

“And I haven’t wanted tea all day.”

He looked toward the cups.

“I can make something else.”

“I know.”

“I can—”

She touched his mouth.

“Sit with me first.”

He nodded immediately.

They sat on the kitchen bench.

He kept her hand in both of his.

For a while, he only looked at her.

Then he asked, very quietly, “May I?”

His gaze moved toward her middle.

She smiled.

“Yes.”

He rested his palm there.

Nothing moved beneath it.

No silver answered.

There was no sudden knowledge.

Dinraal bowed his head anyway.

Isolde watched his face.

Finally, he whispered, “Oh.”

And she began crying again.

They ate the bread much later.

Dinraal remembered it only when the First Weapon attempted to remove the loaf from the table.

“That’s ours.”

The creature looked at him with what Isolde considered a defensible objection.

“You left it unattended,” she said.

“For a good reason.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

Dinraal looked down.

The First Weapon leaned against his knee.

After a moment, Dinraal tore off a small piece.

Isolde raised an eyebrow.

“Effective strategy.”

“I respect competence.”

She laughed.

The sound made him look at her again.

He had been doing that since she told him.

She thought she might get tired of it eventually.

Not today.

They went through Johanna’s notes together.

There would be another visit.

Some things needed to be watched.

Some could wait.

Neither of them had to decide immediately what to tell the wider family.

Dinraal read every line without pretending the page contained guarantees.

When he finished, he set it down.

“Do you want to tell them?”

“Soon.”

“All of them?”

She considered.

“Aurelius is coming this evening.”

Dinraal looked up.

“He knows?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“But?”

“He may have guessed.”

Dinraal smiled faintly.

“He’s annoyingly good at that.”

“I wanted you to hear it first.”

His expression softened.

He reached across the table for her hand.

“Thank you.”

She turned his fingers so she could see the ring.

“I liked having a little while when it was only mine to know.”

He listened.

“Then I wanted it to be ours.”

He nodded.

That was all.

No disappointment at having missed the appointment.

No question about why she had waited.

She had known he would understand.

It still mattered to hear it in the quiet way he held her hand.

After a while, he said, “Eve sent a report.”

“Tiran?”

“You’ve heard?”

“Only that there was news.”

He told her.

The mountain halls.

The four hundred patients.

Sigmund walking beside them while the others carried.

Every one arriving.

Isolde listened with her hand resting beneath his.

“All?”

“All.”

She closed her eyes briefly.

Then opened them.

“I’d like to read that.”

“We can go tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

He glanced toward the folded house plan.

She followed his gaze.

They both smiled.

“Not tonight,” she said.

“No.”

“Tonight, we can leave the rooms where they are.”

Dinraal looked around the kitchen.

“Yes,” he said. “We can.”

Aurelius arrived exactly when he said he would.

That alone nearly made Isolde laugh.

Dinraal opened the door.

For a moment, the two men looked at each other.

Then Aurelius smiled.

“You appear to have had news.”

Dinraal nodded.

“Come in.”

The older man removed his coat slowly.

He put it on the hook.

Then took it off again because he had hung it over Isolde’s.

Dinraal watched him.

“You’re nervous.”

“A little.”

“That’s reassuring.”

Aurelius turned.

Isolde stood beside the table.

He looked at her.

She smiled.

“We’re having a baby.”

His face changed.

She would remember that.

The way the careful composure simply left him.

The way he looked at Dinraal once, almost disbelieving, before returning his gaze to her.

“Oh,” he said.

Then he crossed the room.

He embraced Isolde first.

Gently, but without treating her as though she might break.

“Thank you for telling me.”

She held him tightly.

Dinraal stood beside them, laughing under his breath because otherwise he might have started crying again.

Aurelius turned and pulled him close too.

“My boy.”

That was enough.

Dinraal pressed his face against his father’s shoulder.

For a moment, he was not someone who could hold a damaged ship together.

He was simply loved.

When Aurelius finally let him go, he kept one hand on Dinraal’s arm.

“Are you happy?”

Dinraal nodded.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Isolde put a cloth into Aurelius’s free hand.

He looked at it.

Then laughed.

“Prepared.”

“I’ve had practice today.”

They sat down together.

Aurelius asked how she felt.

What Johanna had said.

Whether they wanted anyone else told.

“Not yet,” Isolde answered. “We’d like to do that ourselves.”

“Of course.”

Dinraal watched him while he listened.

Then, unexpectedly, he said, “I wish he could know.”

Aurelius did not need to ask who.

The room grew quiet.

“Bahamut,” Dinraal said anyway.

Isolde reached for his hand beneath the table.

Aurelius looked at the two of them for a long moment.

“I wish that too.”

Dinraal nodded.

He had not wanted an easy answer.

Aurelius’s hand settled over his.

“You can tell your child about him.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“With something you remember.”

Dinraal looked down at the table.

There were so many memories sharpened by loss.

He wanted others.

A voice before a battle.

A hand.

Something ordinary.

“I’ll have to think.”

“You have time.”

Isolde squeezed his fingers.

Aurelius leaned back, blinking more often than usual.

Then his gaze moved to the kitchen door frame.

“Will there be another mark?”

Dinraal looked toward it.

“Eventually.”

Aurelius smiled.

“I look forward to being overtaken.”

The news from Avalon arrived the next day.

Jessa was expecting twins.

Isolde read the family notice beside Dinraal at the relay table.

For a moment, she simply stared at the word.

Then she laughed softly.

“What?” Asha asked.

“Nothing.”

Dinraal looked at her.

His expression threatened to give them away.

She pressed her heel lightly against his boot beneath the table.

He became very interested in the message.

Eve read the rest.

Jessa and Sigmund were well.

The children were growing at an ordinary pace.

The family had only just learned there were two.

There was no account of the private waiting, no invitation for Hearth to examine the intimate history behind the announcement.

They had been given happy news.

Isolde was content to receive it as that.

“Twins,” Asha said again.

She looked toward Eve.

“We should update the family list.”

“We should send congratulations first.”

“That too.”

Dinraal smiled.

Isolde watched the movement of his hand toward his communicator.

Then stop.

He looked at her, asking without words.

She considered.

They had told Aurelius.

They had not yet told Rhiannon, Tiamat, or Aramaeis.

She shook her head slightly.

He nodded and put the communicator away.

Their news could wait another day.

It would still belong beside the other good things when they were ready.

They wrote to Jessa and Sigmund together.

No advice.

No comparison.

Just their happiness for them, and a wish for quiet moments in what sounded like an increasingly crowded household.

Asha wanted to add something about two new patterns in the silver.

Eve looked at her.

Asha crossed it out.

“Fine.”

Isolde smiled.

On the way out, Dinraal paused beside the Tiran report.

Eve had put a clean copy on the wall.

The final line stood alone.

All.

He touched the edge of the page.

Then he looked at Isolde.

She understood.

They had spent so many days reading the difference between those who left and those who arrived.

It mattered to stand in front of a page where that difference was absent.

They stayed there for a little while.

Then went back into the daylight.

Isolde had expected keeping the news private to be difficult.

She had not expected the difficulty to be Dinraal’s face.

He smiled at nothing.

He smiled when Halen complained about the weather.

He smiled when Gilgamesh announced that someone had eaten the last of the bread, despite having bread in his hand.

By midday, Rhiannon had cornered him outside the community kitchen.

“What have you done?”

Dinraal looked startled.

“Nothing.”

“That is clearly untrue.”

Isolde approached before he could make matters worse.

“We’ll come for supper tomorrow.”

Rhiannon looked between them.

“Both of you?”

“Yes.”

“With everyone?”

“If they’re free.”

Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed.

Then widened slightly.

Isolde touched her arm.

“Tomorrow.”

For once, Rhiannon did not argue.

She only nodded.

Then she turned sharply and went back into the kitchen.

Dinraal watched her go.

“She knows.”

“She suspects.”

“She’s going to tell Tiamat.”

“She might.”

“Should we—”

Isolde took his hand.

“Let’s walk.”

They went down toward the lower garden plots.

The air smelled of turned soil and damp leaves.

A few late plants remained beneath covers. Adela had organized the tools into an arrangement only she understood. A sign beside the watering cans warned children not to leave them full when the nights grew colder.

Dinraal sat on the low wall.

Isolde stood between his knees.

“Are you worried?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“About telling them?”

“About everything after.”

She nodded.

He looked up at her.

“I keep finding new things I don’t know.”

“So do I.”

“What if the silver—”

“We’ll ask Johanna.”

“She might not know.”

“Then we’ll know she doesn’t.”

He was quiet.

Isolde rested her hands on his shoulders.

“I don’t need you to promise nothing will frighten us.”

“I know.”

“I need you to keep telling me when you are frightened.”

He took a slow breath.

“All right.”

“And I’ll tell you too.”

He rested his forehead against her.

For a while, they stayed like that.

Then Isolde said, “I’m also thinking about ridiculous things.”

“Such as?”

“Whether the small cupboard will be enough.”

“It won’t.”

“You answered that very quickly.”

“I’ve seen Rhiannon buying things for other people’s children.”

Isolde laughed.

Dinraal smiled against her shoulder.

Then he drew back.

“What else?”

“I want to know what they’ll sound like when they laugh.”

His expression changed.

She touched his cheek.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That one gets me too.”

They told the others over supper.

Rhiannon had made far too much food.

That was not evidence of anything.

She always made too much food.

The second cake was more suspicious.

Tiamat watched Isolde from the moment she entered, but waited until everyone was seated.

Aramaeis noticed the waiting.

Gilgamesh noticed the cake.

Cleopatra noticed all of them.

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

She took his hand openly on the table.

“We have something to tell you.”

Nobody interrupted.

Not even Gilgamesh.

Isolde felt Dinraal’s thumb move against her fingers.

“We’re expecting a child.”

Rhiannon made a sound that was half laugh, half sob.

Tiamat stood so quickly that her chair scraped the floor.

Then Isolde was being embraced.

Carefully.

Fiercely.

By more people than seemed physically possible.

Dinraal found Aramaeis beside him.

His uncle’s hand rested on his shoulder.

“Well.”

Dinraal laughed.

“Yes.”

Aramaeis looked toward Isolde, then back at him.

“I’ll need to make something.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

He embraced him before Dinraal could answer.

Across the room, Gilgamesh had begun congratulating them loudly enough that someone opened the kitchen door to see what had happened.

Cleopatra closed it again.

“They’ll tell people when they’re ready.”

Gilgamesh lowered his voice by a fraction.

Rhiannon was crying without any attempt to conceal it now.

Tiamat held Isolde’s face between her hands.

“How are you?”

“Happy.”

“Yes, but—”

“Johanna’s looking after me.”

Tiamat nodded.

That answer was enough for tonight.

Eventually, everyone sat again.

The food had cooled.

Nobody cared.

Aurelius sat at Dinraal’s other side, quietly watching the room with an expression that made Dinraal’s throat tighten.

“You’re pleased with yourself,” Dinraal murmured.

“I’ve kept a secret for an entire day.”

“A remarkable achievement.”

“I thought so.”

Isolde leaned toward him.

“He was much better at it than you.”

Aurelius laughed.

After that, the meal became gloriously disorganized.

There were questions they could answer.

Questions they could not.

No, they had not chosen a name.

No, they did not know whether there would be a son or daughter.

No, they were not moving Aurelius out of the guest room tonight.

That last answer was directed at Rhiannon, who had already begun discussing furniture.

Aramaeis quietly asked whether the kitchen door frame was strong enough to survive generations of measurements.

Dinraal looked at him.

His uncle smiled.

“I’m thinking ahead.”

For the first time, Dinraal did not find that frightening.

They walked home after the dishes had been cleared.

Rhiannon sent food.

Tiamat sent a blanket Isolde insisted they did not yet need.

Aramaeis sent no object at all, which meant he was already planning one.

Aurelius stayed behind to help put the room in order.

For once, Dinraal did not go back for him.

He knew his father would come when he was ready.

At their gate, Isolde stopped.

The house glowed through the windows.

A small, ordinary house.

A kitchen.

Two bedrooms.

A desk beside the window.

A shelf they had cleared before there was anything to put on it.

Dinraal followed her gaze.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“I’m trying to remember this exactly.”

He looked at the door.

At the damp path.

At the corner of the blanket slipping from the basket on his arm.

Then he set the basket down and took her hand.

“We can stand here a little.”

So they did.

Inside, the First Weapon scratched impatiently at the door.

Isolde began laughing.

“That should go in the memory.”

“Definitely.”

Dinraal opened the door.

The creature pushed past them, inspected the baskets, and returned inside apparently satisfied that they had brought enough.

Isolde took off her coat.

Dinraal put the food away.

Then she opened her notebook.

He stood beside her while she found a clean page.

For a moment, she held the pencil without writing.

There were so many words she might want later.

The dates.

Johanna’s voice.

The way Dinraal had asked whether he could put his hand against her.

Aurelius saying her child would know Bahamut through what they remembered.

Rhiannon crying over cold supper.

She would write all of it.

But first, she wrote one sentence.

There are three of us now.

Dinraal read it.

Then he sat beside her.

He did not reach for the house drawing.

He did not calculate how many things needed to change.

He put his arm around her, and Isolde leaned against him while the ink dried.

Outside, the watch lamps burned above Hearth.

Far away, Tiran’s people slept in safety, and another family was learning how to imagine two children where they had hoped for one.

Here, in their kitchen, Isolde turned the page.

There was plenty of room.