Spencer moved to the window, looking out over the town. “You don’t.”
“I do,” Mark insisted. “It’s small. It’s loud. It smells like… optimism.”
Spencer almost smiled. “You prefer the ocean.”
“I prefer space,” Mark corrected. “Depth. Quiet. Not… this.”
He gestured vaguely.
Spencer understood, of course he did, and Mark had always leaned harder into it. Into what they were. Spencer controlled it and contained it, whereas Mark embraced it, he preferred it.
Their Kraken forms weren’t something Mark feared. They were something hemissed.
This place, this job, this proximity to the town where their kind was revered was a strain.
“You could go out,” Spencer said after a moment.
Mark’s gaze snapped to him.
“You know I can’t, you know we can’t.”
Spencer’s expression didn’t change. “I know.”
Spencer looked back out the window. “I didn’t say leave,” he said.
Mark didn’t reply. Because they both knew that line was thinner than it sounded.
Silence settled between them. It was familiar and yet heavy.
Spencer let his gaze drift out toward the sea, he could feel it, that pull, yet it was stronger here, it almost brushed against his soul but now it was restless. Maybe they had denied what their true nature was for far too long.
It wasn’t just about the call of the water, it was different, and Spencer had read about it a while ago. A note in a text that hadn’t seemed relevant at the time.
When a Kraken begins to feel the pull beyond territory or tide… it is not the sea calling.
Spencer exhaled slowly, they had no time for this. They would find the missing heir and deliver her. “The job comes first,” he said quietly.
Mark let out a short breath. “Yeah.”
“Find her. Finish it. Leave.”
“Retire,” Mark added.
Spencer nodded once. “Retire,” he repeated, and yet he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something here wasn’t going to let him leave that easily.
8
Edith had been doinga lot of thinking, which, in her opinion, was deeply unfair. Because thinking led to spiralling and spiralling led to dramatic conclusions.
And dramatic conclusions usually ended with phrases like,“I might have to leave everything I love behind,”which, frankly, she did not recommend as a bedtime activity. And yet here she was, curled into her little nest of blankets on the end of Jessica’s bed, tail tucked neatly around herself, wings folded tight. The room was quiet, warm, and faintly smelled like something comforting. Lavender, maybe, or whatever Jessica had been experimenting with recently.
Jessica herself wasn’t there, she’d been spending more time down in the nursery with Dave, which Edithcompletely understoodand wasnot at all sulking about. Well maybe only a little.
Edith huffed softly, settling her chin onto her paws.
“Fine,” she muttered sleepily. “I don’t need supervision. I am perfectly capable of existing independently and making excellent life choices.” She paused. “Mostly.”
Even with the overthinking, her eyes grew heavy. The events of the day, hunters, panic, grotto explosions, existential dread finally caught up with her. Her breathing calmed and evened out, her body relaxed and, for the first time since she’d seen them, she actually slept.
