That was what he kept coming back to. Like a handhold on something steep. All of it, every sleepless hour, every impossible decision, every moment of standing outside a door he wasn't allowed through, it was building toward this.
Toward the sound that would come, eventually, from behind those doors. Small and new and completely unaware of everything that had been sacrificed to make space for it in the world.
Their child. Their children.
Julian closed his eyes briefly and, for the first time in forty-eight hours, allowed himself to feel something that was not strategy or fear or grief or fury.
Something quieter than all of those. Something that felt, distantly and carefully, like hope.
Beside him, Madam Vale stood still and straight and said nothing. But after a moment, her hand moved, just slightly, and her arm pressed against his. Not a gesture. Not a statement. Just presence. I am here, and I know, and we are waiting together.
