Page 309 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Snowflakes,” Lumi breathes, leaning in. “For Eirlys?”

“For the winter lady,” he confirms. “Born in the cold, to the cold.”

“She’s three months old,” Andrik deadpans.

“And already sturdier than most of my court.” Damon arches a brow.

“You don’t have a court,” Therael sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Andrik looks at the tiny snowflakes. His enormous hand comes up, and with one careful claw, he tilts the box toward Eirlys, bundled against his chest.

“What do you think?”

Eirlys’s eye catches on the glinting metal. Her mittened fist rises and lands on the box.

“She accepts,” Andrik states.

“Naturally.” Damon relinquishes the box to the mitten without hesitation. “Both of my ladies have excellent taste. It runs in the family.” He pauses. “Mine. Not yours.”

“They’re not related to you,” Sage points out.

Damon turns slowly. His gaze moves from Sage… to the wing still curving over the nest… to Vaelína’s fist still tangled in his own braid… and finally, around the crowded, tear-streaked room.

“Aren’t they?” he says simply.

Therael crosses the room and wraps his arm around his brother’s shoulder. Damon’s charms stop chiming.

“... Not a single word,” Therael murmurs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, brother.”

Vaelína chooses this exact moment to yank the braid still caught in her fist. Damon’s head tips with it, entirely unresisting. The wet-eyed god breaks into the most genuinely delighted smile I have ever seen on him.

“Yes,” he tells her, nose to nose, “good instincts. Never let go of anything you love. Your Uncle Damon never does.”

Elena arrives with a satchel over one shoulder. “Hi mama,” she whispers. “How are you doing?”

“I’m pretty sore,” I admit.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ashán and Sage say at the same time.

“Because I knew you’d make that exact face,” I say, “and you’d do that exact thing with the shadows.” The shadows in question, already coiling toward me from three directions, freeze guiltily in mid-air.

“Everyone out,” Ashán rises to his full height.

A chorus of protest rings around the room.

“Out,” he repeats, herding gods, sisters, and one deeply offended Horseman who was about to enter the room toward the stairs with a polite, immovable shadow. “We’ll circle back to this in a moment. My mate is sore, and you are all standing on my patience—five minutes.”

“We’ll take the baby—” Lumi says hopefully.

“The baby stays.”

“CHIRP,” from the petals.

“... The bunny stays,” Ashán concedes.

The door clicks shut on Damon’s hushed commentary—“five minutes, he says, as though we don’t all know exactly what the preferred route of venom delivery⁠—”