Zia’s voice rang from the kitchen. “Coming!” The little girl came running into the hallway, her silver hair bouncing with each step. She stopped short when she saw Cain, her eyes widening in disbelief.

  She froze mid-step, eyes wide and shining. For a second, the silence stretched. “Cain?” she whispered, her voice trembling. Then, with a choked cry, she screamed, “Cain! It’s Cain!”

  She ran full speed down the corridor and threw herself at him. Cain dropped to one knee, catching her in his one arm. She clung to him like a lifeline, sobbing into his shoulder.

  “You’re alive! You’re alive! I thought… I th-thought… the smelly place…” she sobbed.

  The adventurer’s gruff exterior crumbled. Cain was shaking, too. Silent tears rolled down his face as he wrapped his arm around her tiny form. “I’m here, little warrior. I’m here.”

  Jack stood back, his throat tightening as he watched the girl cling to the battered warrior like a shipwrecked sailor finding shore.

  Anna stood in the hallway looking happy but also concerned.

  Cain pressed his forehead to Zia’s. “You’re safe. You’re alright. I was so worried.”

  Zia nodded, hiccuping. “You got better? Th-they let you go?”

  Cain chuckled through his tears. “Eventually. Told me you’d vanished. I thought I’d lost you,” his voice was choked with emotion.

  “I didn’t vanish,” she huffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “A smelly, wobbly man chased me to take my sword, and then someone stoled my sword and… your cloak.” She looked guilty at the loss. “Then I found Jack and… and a new mommy.”

  Cain looked over at Jack and Anna, giving them a nod. “Thank you.”

  Anna smiled. “She’s family now.”

  Zia looked between them and smiled through her tears. “Does this mean we’re all family now?” she asked, her voice hopeful and trembling.

  Cain’s expression softened. “Something like that.”

  They held each other for a long time, two survivors of a tragedy, reunited in a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. Jack watched them from the doorway, a lump in his throat, his mom beside him with her arm around him, tears of happiness pouring from her eyes.

  Cain sat on a kitchen chair that looked two sizes too small for him, with Zia perched on his lap like a baby bird nestled in the crook of a stone gargoyle. She clung to him with the unspoken intensity of someone afraid he might vanish the moment she blinked. Jack took the seat opposite, watching the reunion with a quiet smile. Anna was checking the food she’d left on the stove.

  The room was warm, filled with the smell of bread, onions, and dried herbs. A gentle rattle came from the pipes as spent aether-steam was released, and the afternoon sun filtered in through the brass-latched window, painting golden bars across the table.

  Cain cleared his throat, a low rumble that didn’t help to cut the tension. Jack caught the slight shuffle of Cain’s shoulders and wondered if the warrior was wrestling with what to say, or whether he regretted coming at all.

  “So,” he began, “this your place then, Jack?”

  Jack nodded. “Since I was two.”

  Cain nodded in return, the conversation drying up like a puddle in a forge. Zia watched the exchange like a squirrel sensing a storm. She looked from Jack to Cain and back again, her brow furrowed in concentration, as if trying to decipher the subtext they were too polite to voice.

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  Mom stepped into the ‘conversation’ with a warm, practised smile, the kind that could coax a feeling of home. “Let me make all of us a nice cup of tea.”

  Jack gave her a grateful look. Cain tried to rise in polite protest, but Zia tightened her grip, and he settled back with a sheepish grunt. “Tea would be nice. Thank you.”

  The clink of the kettle being set to boil broke the silence. Anna worked with smooth efficiency, grabbing mugs, selecting the good black tea leaves she saved for guests, and humming under her breath. Cain watched her with a faint look of awe, like he couldn’t quite believe this sort of domestic magic still existed in the world.

  As the tea steeped, Zia wriggled down from Cain’s lap and darted to a high cupboard. With effort and a chair, she heaved out a tin bigger than her head and set it on the table. “These are mine,” she declared, pulling off the lid. “I made them. All of them. Just me.”

  Cain peered into the tin. Inside were dozens of misshapen biscuits. Jack felt a wave of fondness rise in his chest. Zia’s creations were ugly as sin, but she’d poured her heart into every lumpy wing and crooked trunk, each attempting to resemble a different creature, tree, or person. Some had too many legs. Others, too few.

  “They’re biscuits,” Zia explained. “Animal ones. And trees. That one’s a magic wyvern that flies people from Brindlecross to Lundun.” She pointed to a melted blob with wings. “Maybe.”

  Jack couldn’t help but laugh, remembering the dragon biscuit that looked like a cow with udder issues.

  Cain took one, examined it like a suspicious relic, and then popped it into his mouth. His eyes widened. “These are… good. Fantastic.”

  Zia beamed. “You can have more. I made loads.” She pulled out a big one that looked like… a blob and gave it to Cain. “This one’s you. See, it’s wearing a cape and sword like a proper hero. Hmm… but the sword fell off.” She rummaged through the biscuits until she found a bit that might have been a sword and gave it to Cain.

  Cain nodded. Jack chuckled. Anna smiled.

  Cain didn’t need much convincing. One biscuit became two, then three. Zia climbed back onto his lap, feeding him with the eagerness of a toddler pretending to host a royal banquet. The room softened around them.

  Even Jack felt the tightness in his chest begin to ease as he bit into one of Zia’s misshapen biscuits. “You’re getting better at these,” he said, biting the head off a horse biscuit.

  Zia smiled at the compliment.

  Anna served the tea with a smile and sat down with her own mug and biscuit. “She bakes all the time,” she said. “Helps me in the kitchen. She’s definitely going to be offered Novice Cook and Novice Baker when she’s older.”

  “Best jobs ever,” Zia added.

  “We’re thinking of sending her to school after summer,” Anna continued, giving Jack a sidelong glance. “And I’m teaching her about herbs. Might even get her some experience with a healer if I can pull a few strings.”

  Cain took a long sip of his tea and nodded. “She’d be good at that. She was quick to help me back on the road.”

  Zia smiled up at him, pleased. “I fed you apple juice and kept you cool while you slept on the road.”

  Cain’s eyes widened. “Really? I was so out of it. The last thing I remember was finding the road to Lundun and resting my eyes for a few minutes. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the Guild’s infirmary with a big bill.”

  Zia nodded. “I put your cloak under your head and used the water to dab your face, and the apples to feed you. And… and when a goblin attacked, I did what Dad did…”

  Cane interrupted. “A goblin attacked? One of the undead?”

  At the mention of the undead, Jack and his mom looked confused.

  Zia shook her head. “A normal one… erm, I think. It-it didn’t have blue eyes. The wolf got it.”

  “The wolf?” Cain looked puzzled.

  Zia glanced at Jack.

  “Zia says a wolf with one green and one amber eye protected you through the night,” Jack said. Zia nodded in confirmation. “Though, she didn’t mention goblins… or undead?” He looked down at his half-empty tea mug. “I’ve seen that wolf. It followed me for a while when I was injured. It could’ve attacked, but it didn’t. I can’t explain it.”

  Cain stroked Zia’s hair. “We saw the wolf the night before. Made me think of Apollo Lycaeus. It must have followed us.” He shook his head. “A living goblin attacked us? While I was unconscious?” he asked the little girl.

  “Hm-hmm,” Zia said. “It was going to get you, but… but I stood like Daddy with my sword.” She frowned. “Someone stole it! But then the wolf got the goblin and dragged it away. It got more when I was sleepy, and I was keeping you cool. Then… then the mean man came who didn’t help. But the nice man gave you a drink of, erm… something, and more water.”

  Anna looked confused. “Are you saying a goblin attacked you, and you had a sword…” She looked to Cain, who nodded, “…and you were going to fight the goblin, but a wolf got it first?”

  Zia nodded. “That’s what I said.”

  “Okay…” Anna nodded with a bewildered look.