Page 32 of Little Witch

"Cian." His voice came out rough.

Cian's head turned. "Orias."

Orias crossed the room fast despite the injury slowing him, and Cian caught him halfway, pulling him into the same fierce grip he'd given Rowan.

Cian pulled back first, studying both of their faces properly, something almost bewildered in his expression as he looked between them. "You've both grown up so much. I missed watching it happen." A short, disbelieving laugh. "You look older than me now. Actually older. That's a strange thing to say to your little brothers."

"You don't look a day different," Orias said quietly. "Still ugly and loud."

"I don't feel a day different either." Something dark flickered behind Cian's eyes before he shook it off. "Which should probably worry all of us more than it apparently has."

I stood there watching them, my own eyes stinging. Cian's gaze finally landed on me, curious, though something in the way he studied my face told me he already had a good idea who I was before either twin said a word.

"You're Amber, then." A small smile broke through. "I heard a lot about you, growing up."

"Nice to see you again," I managed. I'd been small enough the last time, barely old enough to remember more than memory of him.

"Come." My dad's voice cut gently through the moment, gesturing toward a cluster of worn leather couches near the cold fireplace. "Sit. There's a lot to catch up on."

We settled in — my dad and Cian on one couch, Orias dropping down on my right and taking my hand without either of us discussing it, thumb tracing slow, steady circles against my knuckles. Rowan sat on my left, close enough that his knee pressed against mine the second he sat, a small point of contact that shouldn't have felt like anything and somehow felt like lightning anyway.

"How are you here, Amber?" my dad asked, eyes moving over my face like he was trying to memorize every year he'd missed. "How did you find this place?"

I told them everything — the whispers, the dreams, the shadow-things, the tree. Rowan filled in the parts I skimmed over too fast, Orias adding a dry comment here and there that eased some of the tension sitting thick in the room.

"Same tree found us too," my dad said quietly, once we'd finished. "We thought it was leading us to the source of the imbalance. Somewhere we could fix things properly." He glanced at Cian. "Instead we ended up here."

"That's the problem," Cian said. "This was never the safe hiding place we thought we'd found."

Before I could ask what he meant, my dad's expression shifted, something softer and more hesitant creeping in.

"Amber," he started, glancing toward me, "your mother. Is she—"

"I'm sorry, daddy," My eyes instantly burned. "She... she..."

Something in my chest went tight and cold at once. I felt Orias's hand tighten around mine, felt Rowan's knee press harder against mine like he already knew what was coming and wanted to be close enough to catch me through it.

"She and our mother died three years ago." Rowan said softly.

"Both of them?" Cian and my father stilled, as Cian's words came out rough.

"They were married," I said carefully. "It happened a few years after you both disappeared."

My dad blinked, surprised, something almost pleased flickering behind his eyes. "Married."

"They fell for each other," Rowan added quietly. "They were happy. Genuinely happy, the whole time they were together."

"What happened to them," my dad asked, his face going pale in the low firelight.

My throat closed up. "There was an accident. A car crash." My voice cracked on the last word.

The silence that followed felt like it swallowed the whole room. My dad's eyes filled fast, and for a second he didn't try to hide it, tears slipping free before he scrubbed a hand roughly over his face, jaw working like he was fighting to hold something back together that had just come apart all over again.

"I'm glad," he said finally, voice thick, once he'd gotten himself steady enough to speak. "I'm glad she wasn't alone. That she had someone who loved her, right up until the end." He reached over and squeezed my hand, hard, like he needed the contact as much as I did. "That's all I ever wanted."

Cian sat quiet beside him, jaw tight, grief moving plainly across his face even though he didn't say anything more about it. Orias's thumb kept tracing slow circles against my knuckles the whole time, grounding in a way I didn't have words for yet.

Nobody spoke for a while. Eventually my dad cleared his throat, visibly steering us toward something a little easier to hold.