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“Hello,” Anya says softly.

Sofia’s mother gives a small, unsteady laugh. “Hello, sweetheart.”

“Are you my grandma?”

“Yes.” Her voice breaks. “If you want me to be.”

Anya considers that. Then she steps into her arms.

The woman holds her with both hands and closes her eyes. Sofia’s father kneels beside them, his hand covering his mouth as he watches.

I feel Nikolai go still beside me.

I slide my arm around his waist and rest my cheek briefly against his shoulder. His arm comes around me, firm and warm, holding me close while we watch Anya ask her grandmother whether she brought the gift herself or bought it.

“She bought it,” Sofia’s father says, smiling through wet eyes. “But she spent a very long time choosing it.”

Anya opens the bag and finds a small princess doll in a yellow dress.

“Look Papa,” she says. “I think this is what my baby sister will look like.”

Nikolai chuckles beside me. “Sure, sweetheart. And what about your baby brother?”

“I’ll make him a doll,” Anya.

I put a hand on my belly instinctively. We’re having twins—we found out a few months ago.

Anya turns to Sofia’s parents. “The babies are going to live here. I’m going to help.”

Her grandmother looks past her, toward me.

For a second, I expect discomfort. I expect questions, maybe some careful distance because I am the woman carrying Nikolai’s child after their daughter’s death.

Instead, she looks at my stomach, then at Nikolai’s arm around me.

“You must be Elara,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Thank you for loving her.”

The simple kindness of it catches me off guard.

I nod because my throat feels tight.

Nikolai looks down at me. I lift my face and kiss him softly. He kisses me back without hesitation, one hand still spread across my lower back, the other resting protectively over my stomach.

When we pull apart, Anya is watching us. “You’re being gross again,” she says.

“You are the one who wanted a sibling,” Nikolai tells her.

“I wanted a baby. I didn’t want kissing.”

Kirill comes through the side hall at that moment, carrying an overnight bag for Sofia’s parents. Anya sees him and holds up the doll.

“That’s very cute, Anya,” Kirill says kindly.

Anya just giggles. I’m sure she doesn’t understand what happened when Kirill disappeared, but she has been extra nice to him since he came back.