The whitecaps whipped against the earth with rabid hunger. The cold was so cold in fact, it burned against his toes—but still Jaylin stood within the bite of the waves. Three weeks since he'd been here. That was all it been, and yet it felt so long ago. It felt like he'd suffered and woken from a thousand nightmares since then. That, within those three weeks, he'd walked through the gates of hell and waded through its impious lakes of fire to get back to this place.

And he couldn't let go of it.

Her hand touched his back and he turned his head to Tisper. The light of a swirling gray sky glinted from the silk embroidery of her eyepatch. She'd started on it hours after she awoke, still deeply medicated in her hospital bed. The doctor told her she'd lost the eye and the nurse handed her the patch, still new in its wrappings. But Tisper wasn't like most people; she didn't mourn for her loss. She turned the patch over in her hands and said: "This won't do." Then she asked for a sewing kit from the craft store and went to work, needling flowers into the fabric. When the first patch was done, she asked for another and another and another. One patch for each outfit in her wardrobe.

At first, Jaylin thought it must not be healthy. Some kind of coping mechanism to deal with her loss. A distraction from her severance. But he realized in time, that it was only Tisper. That all her life, she'd been stitching daisies into the fabric of this ugly gray world. This was how Tisper coped, how she existed—by staying in motion. By moving forward, by letting go.

So why couldn't he?

His hands went tight around the plastic.

Matt sunk into the sand at his side, taking the cap from his head so the wind could soak through his hair the way it washed through everything else in this place. Matt, who was dead and not. Who'd somehow found his way back from the grave, heart still ticking and blood still pumping, according to every nurse and doctor who'd checked his vitals since that day in Maine.

Matt had literally overcome death. He'd escaped it. He'd moved on.

Jesus, Jaylin. Why can't you just let go?

He stared down to the remote in his hands. It had meant nothing to him ten minutes ago—or four days before that, when Tisper had begged her grandmother to fetch it from her storage units in Washington and fast-track it to the watch in California. It meant nothing to him until he was standing there, at the water's edge, ready to chuck it into the ocean.

It's just a remote, he told himself—but that wasn't true at all. A splash of red nail polish still stained the play button from the night she'd had a bit too much wine and decided to give herself a manicure. This was the last piece of his mother he had to his name. It was a stupid, cheap, replaceable television remote—but it was her energy that existed within these buttons. The residuals of her lived in this thing.

"Jay—"

"Give him time, Matt."

He wasn't going to hide his tears from them. There was no point in that anymore—not when they'd both nearly died for him. Not when he loved them like he did. The way she'd taught him to love. He let the salt sting his cheeks, stroking over the rubber buttons like they were things that actually mattered. Precious jewels or old photographs. Her favorite pink sweater, the smell of her perfume. Tisper still had those things—she'd kept them tucked away in her storage unit while he was busy drinking and fucking and failing in college. Tisper had saved all of those things. Why was this so hard to let go of?

"Jay." Matt's voice was soft against the grainy snarl of the ocean. "If it's too hard, maybe you shouldn't."

"I'm okay." Jaylin wiped his face in his hands and took in a long, ragged breath. Stay in motion, Jaylin. Move forward. After a moment of collection, he took a fair step back in the sand. Then, with all he had, he sent the remote hurling into the hungry ocean waves. And it hurt—it did. But just for a moment. Because after that, all he could feel were Tisper's arms around him, Matt's hand on his shoulder. They watched the sun set over the edge of the ocean those angry waves reared back, like their hunger had been satisfied. Like they'd been waiting all this time for a piece of her.

Matt gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Hey, bud..." he said, watching the seagulls careen on the horizon. "You took the batteries outta that, right?"

"No," Jaylin replied. "Should I have?"

"Honestly, this was all really poorly executed," Tisper mused. "I wonder how much sea life you just massacred."

Jaylin looked to them both and laughed, the tears cold as ice on his cheeks. "Maybe Sadie was right. Maybe we should have just lit a candle and said a few words."

Matt slung an arm around his shoulders and sucked in a breath of the saltwater air. It left him in one deep, gusty sigh. "Nah. Julia would'a really liked this."

"Guys." they turned at once to Alex, who hung back by Matt's wrangler—the vehicle one of the main reasons they'd returned to California instead of taking a flight straight home. There was also the matter of their thing, along with Quentin's things and Sadie's things. In fact, Matt's Wrangler was so packed with things, Jaylin worried for the seventeen-hour journey North.

Alex was gazing down at the cell phone in one hand, the other holding onto the backpack leash that kept Nadaline within his vicinity. The tiny toddler trashed and clawed for escape, but she must've been at it for some time, because Alex ignored her while she flopped about like a hooked fish. "Their flight just landed," he said. "Are we ready to go?"

"Think so." Matt jogged to the wrangler and heaved himself onto the back. He dug around in their cargo as if he could tell what was missing by what wasn't. "Everything packed? You got Sadie's stuff, Tis?"

"Yeah, it's all in there," said Tisper, "but I'm not sure she'll need it."

"Probably not," Matt said. "Probably chuggin' wine from a silver grail by now, right?"

"Yeah." Tisper trudged just a bit slower through the sand, wrapping her cardigan around herself. "I miss her."

"We'll see her again," Jaylin promised. "Things are just going to be... busy over there for a while."

"And what about her?" Tisper asked, crouching to look Nadaline in the eye. She held a finger out to the little lich, who leaned forward and chomped at the air like a snapping turtle. Tisper yanked her finger away just before she took the tip off. "Don't bite me, you demon spawn!"

"I told you not to point at her," said Alex. "She takes it as an invitation."

"Think she can talk at all?" Matt rounded the wrangler and cracked open the driver door, leaning against the frame in that cross-ankled cowboy slump of his. "She hasn't said a word since we left the watch. Not much else before that but babble."

Jaylin reached out for the child and she gripped at his fingers with both hands—one large and beastly, the other tiny, with gentle fingers that that squeezed softly at the skin of his knuckles. "She'll learn." Her large blue eyes blinked up to him and Jaylin felt that warm whir of her heartbeat in his own chest. "We'll teach her."

"And all the other kids?" Tisper asked. "You plan on teaching them, too?"

"They'll be fostered out to other wolves in the area until they're old enough for a watch house," said Jaylin. "They're normal kids, Tis. Just a little... bitey."

She cocked her head back with a scowl. None of the lich kids seemed to take much of a liking to Tisper. "So have you told him, then? About her?"

Jaylin paused and glanced up to Alex, who shook his head firmly. "I haven't said anything."

As for Jaylin, he hadn't a working phone to contact them on. But it wasn't only that. Jaylin hadn't seen him. Not since his last night at Ziya's keep. Lisa had been sending Alex updates now and then, leeched onto his bedside all the way back in Maine—but not even she knew about Nadaline. How in God's name would he tell then?

"Let's get going," Matt said, heaving himself up into his seat. "We got a long drive. I get home and I don't wanna hear from anyone. I'm going to sleep and all of y'all better leave me the hell alone for at least a week."

"You'd miss us," Tisper crooned.

"The hell I would. I've had more than enough of you people to last a lifetime," Matt said. He twisted the key in the ignition the the Wrangler groaned against the roar of the ocean wind. "Y'all are just lucky I got more than one."

The ride back to Washington was grueling, because though Nadaline didn't know how to speak, she knew how to scream. It took all four of them—including a pathetic attempt on Tisper's part—to change her diaper without suffering a scratch or a bite. And when the tantrum came, it came hard.

After the first hour of wailing, Matt pulled off of the interstate and they shared a room in a shoddy hotel. They disguised Nadaline's monstrous hand with an oven mitt and told anyone who asked that she was just getting over her first case of chicken pox. The others made their beds while Jaylin paced the halls with the beast in his arms, listening to her soft little upset hiccups lessen and lessen. For hours she'd been crying, real tears wetting her plump little cheeks.

Jaylin rocked her, talking all the while: "What's wrong, huh? Was it your lunch?" They'd searched a long time for a place to eat, but the closest they came to an organic lunch was cubed cheese and pepperoni from the deli section at a Shop-Mart. Still, the toddler had all her teeth and devoured her food in ten minutes time. "Are you thirsty?" he asked, but when he'd last tried to give her water, she refused. He shifted her to his other arm and she clung to the neck of his shirt, still hiccuping and whimpering against his skin. "You're scared, aren't you?" he realized. This was all so new, and though a lichund, Nadaline was only a child. That cell and the last few days in the watch house were all she'd ever known.

He sat with her after that, slumped against the wall beside a stranger's room. And eventually Nadaline succumbed to the gentle pats on the back and fell asleep, limp and heavy on his chest. By the time he carried her back into the room, Tisper had made a bed within the gutted drawer of a dresser. Nadaline fit perfectly inside, her cheeks pink and pressed from the fabric of his shirt.

"She's so sweet when she's sleeping," Tisper muttered, patting the bed beside her. Jaylin stripped off his drool-soaked shirt and slid beneath the duvet.

"What do you think's going to happen?" he asked, reaching out for a stray lock of Tisper's hair. "When he finds out she's alive?"

"I dunno, Jay." Tisper turned on her pillow to look him in the eye. "I'm more worried about you."

"About me?" asked Jaylin. "Why?"

"Because this changes everything, Jaylin. There's a kid involved and that... complicates things. I mean, it usually does, right?"

He hadn't thought about it before, but Tisper wasn't wrong. A piece of Anna was still alive. What did that mean for Quentin?

He gnawed on his lip and watched the lights of passing traffic swim along the ceiling. He'd been so concerned about Quentin's recovery, so elated to know he'd be okay and well again. He hadn't thought about it. He hadn't thought about whether he himself was ready for something like this.

"It'll be okay." Tisper must've noticed his distress because she sat up suddenly on her elbow and gave his chest a pat. "Forget I said anything. Are you excited to see him?"

"Nervous," Jaylin admitted.

"Me too." The scent of her washed over him as she laid back and tugged the blanket up to her chin. "To see them all I mean. Imani and Izzy and..."

"Felix," Matt groaned from the bed, rolling over and stuffing his pillow over his ears. "We know, we know."

"Oh shut up," Tisper scowled. "It's not even that. It's just... I feel like I owe him now." She reached up to touch her eyepatch, tracing the rain drops she'd sewn into the fabric. "What do you say to someone who's saved your life?"

"Don't say anything." The sound came from Alex, who sat up, scratching at the back of his wild blond curls. "Trust me, Felix... he doesn't want that. If you want to thank him, then buy him a beer."

Tisper scoffed at the notion.

"I mean it, Tis." Alex's voice cracked, grainy with sleep. It had to be midnight, at least. "Felix is one of the most simple, complicated people in the world. There are places in him you have to tread lightly. His fears are... they're few, but they're great, you know?"

"What are you saying?" Tisper asked. "Not to tell him thank you because it'll... scare him away?"

"Because he's already scared," Alex said.

"I don't understand—"

"I know." Alex pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "It makes sense to me. I noticed it, after we left Ziya's keep and you were moved to that hospital back in Maine. I don't usually... look into Felix's head, but his thoughts were so loud. They've never been loud. And it's not about you, or what happened, it's just—" he scratched at his head again, hair sticking out in every wayward direction "—he's complicated, like I said. He's complicated and simple. So trust me, if you want to make up for what he did, buy him a beer."

So she did. They stopped by a Wine and Spirits store and she purchased the most expensive dark Norwegian beer on their shelves and kept it in her lap the entire drive home.

It was six at night when they finally pulled into the gravel road that led to the Sigvard Manor. The skies were gray, but not dark. A soft gray and lavender, like the clouds were pregnant with a rain that would never come. Eventually, the trees slipped away, and she was there in all her beauty—that brick mansion with her man-sized roses and her twisted, winding willow tree.

"I'll take you home after this," Matt was telling Tisper. "So don't get too drunk tonight because I'm leaving after dinner."

"Grandma's waiting for me at the apartment anyway so I can't get home too late," Tisper said with a frown. "Cut me off after three glasses, okay Jay?"

But Jaylin wasn't paying their conversation any mind. He was watching the front door to the manor open. Lisa stepped outside, dawned in a long red summer dress, her face full and beautiful—the way she looked in the photos on the wall. She must've been cleaning, because she folded her rag in her hands and smiled at the wrangler as it slowed to a crawl over the long gravel drive.

Then the door opened again and Jaylin's heart stopped when he saw him—dressed in a sweater and black jeans, his hair freshly groomed, the wind pushing through it, billowing against the chest of his knit sweater. All of his color had come back and his smile—god, it felt like forever since Jaylin had seen that smile. He reached for his buckle and released it with a click. "Stop the car."

"Seriously?" Matt's brown eyes scrutinized him in the rearview mirror. "We'll be there in like four seconds, just—"

But Jaylin was prying the lock up and shoving open the door.

Tisper reached out for him. "Jay, wait."

"Jesus—" Matt pressed on the brakes and Jaylin stumbled out of the still-moving wrangler and into the groomed grass of the wind-swept lawn. He found his footing and ran—a jog at first, and then a sprint—cutting through the shallow puddles and slipping on mud left behind by the mid-morning rain. He ran as fast as his legs would take him, and Quentin jogged down the steps and out into the grass to meet him, catching him as Jaylin leapt up into his arms.

"Careful!" he heard Imani snarl as she stepped out onto the porch. "Damn idiot, you still have stitches!"

But Jaylin couldn't take his eyes away. Quentin's smile filled him with everything he'd been missing since that awful night. He couldn't give it up—he wouldn't give it up for even a second. He held Quentin's face in his hands and kissed him, again and again between breaths. A ray of sunlight cut through a gap in the clouds and Jaylin felt the warmth of it on his face, but there was no way it could possibly be as beautiful as this, so he kissed Quentin and he didn't stop kissing Quentin. Not until the lost breath from the run over clamped down on his lungs, and even then, he stayed there with their foreheads pressed together, finger curling into those deep black locks.

Jaylin thought he'd cried all the tears left to cry, but somehow still, he felt one hot on his skin.

"I love you," Jaylin said. "I do—and I thought I wouldn't get to tell you. I hated that I didn't tell you."

Quentin grinned and an elated breath came from him. "You did tell me."

"No, not like this," Jaylin said. "Not like I should have."

He unhooked his legs from around Quentin's waist and let himself slide down until his feet touched the ground again, never looking away from those eyes. "I love you," he repeated, because he would never be able to get the point across just once.

Warm fingers raked through his hair, and Quentin pulled him into his chest, cradling his head beneath his chin. Jaylin shut his eyes, listening to the strong heartbeat. The one that he swore was beginning to fade that night in Ziya's throne room.

"I love you too, Jaylin." For a long time, it was like the rest of the world didn't exist. Like Matt and Tisper and Alex weren't all waiting for his embrace to end so they could come into the warmth of the house. Maybe it was selfish, but they were so out of mind, Jaylin forgot for a moment they existed. He just stayed there like that, listening to Quentin's heart. Listening until those warm arms slid from around him and Quentin reached for his hand. "It's starting to rain. Let's go inside—"

"Wait." His chest ached from beating so hard, and Jaylin rubbed anxiously at the feeling. His fingers curled tight around Quentin's hand. "Wait, Quentin. There's something else."

Confusion nestled into Quentin's face and he looked Jaylin over for an answer, but there was no way to just... tell him. So Jaylin turned and made his way back to the wrangler. He cracked open the door and Nadaline sat there, wide, curious eyes watching the willow tree dance in the wind. Jaylin unbuckled the straps of her car seat and she reached for him, desperate to escape its confines. They'd dressed her in clothes from a Good Will along the way—a baby blue dress and shoes a size too big. She stumbled in them as Jaylin led her by the hand, to the man she didn't yet know as a father.

Quentin watched every step she took toward him, but that muddled expression of his didn't change. Jaylin gave the child a small push forward and she gaped up at Quentin with those sky-blue eyes. And whether it was the scent of her, or the face of her mother, or those intuitions he always gloated about, recognition flickered in his eyes, and with it came a fast, sudden upsurge of tears.

He shook his head, blinking them back. "No..."

Then Nadaline smiled only briefly—that one single divot sinking into her cheek.

On the veranda, Lisa made sound into her palm and dropped to her knees. Her daughter's smile, come back from the grave. And that smile was proof enough for Quentin to cup a hand over his mouth, to choke out a sob and shake his head again. "It can't—She—"

"It's her, Quentin. I promise it's her."

He wiped his hands up his face and into his hair. And he stood there, gripping it. Breathing. And after a long moment of grappling, Quentin knelt to the ground and reached out for the little lichund, brushing against one of the long, wicked talons on her fingers.

But instead of sinking her claws into him—instead of nipping at whatever was in bite's reach like she'd done to the others, Nadaline reached out and touched his face. Her large hand splayed out against his cheek, her human one feeling at the rough grain of his facial hair. When she noticed the tear cutting down his face, her little fingers grabbed at it gently—as if to capture it for herself. Quentin laughed to her touch, looking her in those wide, blue, beryl eyes. "It is you, isn't it?" he whispered. "Nadaline."

Then she held her arms up to him like she'd done to Jaylin—that silent demand to be lifted up or carried around. And Quentin pulled her in close, tears falling down his face as he held her head against his shoulder, took in the scent of her. She smelled like him. Jaylin had noticed it too.

Maybe Tisper was right. Maybe it would change everything. Maybe it would ruin them. But he would take it. If it meant this—if it meant seeing Quentin whole again, he would take it.

He stepped in front of Quentin and reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder—partly to offer him privacy from the others, who still hung by the wrangler. Partly because he couldn't stand to be so far away for a moment longer.

Quentin grabbed hold of the hand on his shoulder and looked up to him with that beautiful pain on his face. "You, Jaylin Maxwell," he whispered, a tear falling from his lashes. "You just keep saving me."

an; there will be more Sadie coming and an explanation about that - just hold tight.