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“How long did it take you?”

“Six weeks and a lot of crying.” Then she did look up. “Hers, mostly.”

I laughed. Sparrow turned at the sound and gave me a look as if I’d disturbed her.

Wren smiled at me before she looked back down at Sparrow. I wanted to ask her about those six weeks. She’d said she’d tell me about the year when she was ready, so I waited.

“Her first smile was for Moff,” Wren said. “Seven weeks old. He’d been awake all night, looked like hell and she smiled the second she saw him.”

I wanted every story she’d let me have, even the ones about somebody else being there when I wasn’t.

“Want to see her first bath?” Wren brought up a photograph on her phone and showed it to me. Sparrow was red-faced and furious in a little tub. Robin’s hand was in the picture, holding a towel twice her size.

I looked at Sparrow’s furious little face. Robin had been there with the towel while I’d been in Millfield, trying to find out if she’d even been born. I handed Wren her phone. “Can you send me that one?”

“Of course.” A moment later, the photograph arrived on mine. I saved it before I put my phone away.

Before I left, I stood beside Wren. “Show me how you settled her.”

“You saw me.”

“Show me again.”

She turned so I could see where Sparrow’s cheek rested against her shoulder. “Keep her up here. Hand on her back, like this. And keep moving. She’ll complain if you stop.”

“Let me try.”

Wren passed her over. I got Sparrow against my shoulder and started walking the length of the meeting room. She let me make one circuit before her face crumpled.

“Come on, baby girl.” I rubbed her back the way Wren had shown me. Sparrow cried louder. “I’m doing exactly what your mom did.”

“That’s where you’re going wrong,” Wren said. “She knows I’m not holding her.”

I looked at her over Sparrow’s head. “So what do I do?”

“Keep trying.” Wren took Sparrow when she reached for her. The crying stopped almost at once. She caught the look on my face and smiled. “You’ll get another chance, Seb.”

❧

Wednesday morning, String sent his audit. He’d tried two ways into Venom’s records that I hadn’t thought of. Both were shut. I passed his report to Dutch and went to the boathouse.

Sparrow reached for my reading glasses the moment I picked her up. I took them off before she could bend them, and she made a surprised little noise. When I put them back on, she laughed. I did it again, and she laughed before I’d got them all the way down my nose.

“How many times are you going to do that?” Wren asked from the desk.

“Until she gets bored.”

“She won’t.”

“Good.”

Wren looked up then. She smiled at me, not just at Sparrow. I nearly missed putting my glasses back on. Nick stood in the doorway with his coffee and watched me make a fool of myself for another five minutes.

Sparrow got close enough to catch one arm of the frames and pulled them off my face. I held on to her with one hand and let her have the glasses until Nick came over and helped me pry her fingers loose.

“You’ve made that game too interesting,” Wren said.

“I can get another pair.”