Chapter 41 – promise
Luke stared at it a second longer than he should have.
"Who drew that?"
Sara pointed at Sera immediately.
Sera frowned. "I had a dream."
"What kind of dream?"
She shrugged, looking away. "Loud one. I don't remember."
Petra's voice came like a whisper underwater.
"Interesting."
Luke didn't answer.
Sara tugged his sleeve.
"You're not listening. You have to pick which district gets the park."
He forced his attention back to the cardboard city and picked the district nearest the drawn river.
"Here."
"Wrong," both girls said simultaneously.
He took the loss with appropriate humility. When Emily called his name from the kitchen, he stood slowly and left the girls arguing over whether fox lawyers needed tiny briefcases.
The kitchen was quiet. The kettle hummed low on the stove.
Emily was standing by the sink, left hand braced on the counter. Her right arm remained in the sling. There were faint shadows under her eyes that makeup would never hide, and she had not bothered trying.
Luke stopped at the doorway. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The sounds from the bedroom—muffled bickering, one laugh, then a thump—filled the silence between them.
Emily poured hot water into two cups.
"You don't have to stand there like you're being interrogated," she said.
"Habit."
She handed him one cup. Their fingers did not touch.
Emily leaned back against the counter, looked at the steam rising from her tea, and asked without looking at him:
"Were you in danger that night?"
No preface.
No warehouse.
No names.
No lies requested.
Luke held the cup carefully. "Yes."
"Is it over?"
He thought of the alley.
The corpse under the tarp.
The ring pulse.
Arthur's fire.
The masks in the rafters.
"No."
Emily closed her eyes briefly.
"Thank you for the honesty."
"I can't give you all of it."
"I know."
She took a sip, winced faintly when her shoulder shifted wrong, and set the cup down.
Luke's gaze flicked to her sling.
"Did the medic say how long?"
"Fracture. Two weeks minimum before field clearance. Maybe longer if command behaves like command." A thin smile touched one corner of her mouth and vanished. "Arthur wants me benched permanently."
"You won't be."
"No."
They stood in silence again.
This one was less sharp.
Not soft. Just less sharp.
Emily spoke first.
"They missed you."
Luke swallowed once. "I missed them, too."
She looked at him finally, direct and unreadable.
"You missed them now," she said. "Try not to miss them only now."
The line landed without anger. That made it worse.
Luke nodded.
"I'll be here more."
"Don't promise what you can't control."
"I can control this."
"Can you?"
He met her eyes and did not look away.
"Yes."
Emily studied him like she was trying to find a seam in polished stone. Sometimes he thought she might genuinely see through him.
Not his lies.
Him.
The wrongness she had felt since the alley.
Her voice lowered.
"You're changing faster than I can follow."
Luke did not answer.
Because she was right. And because no answer he could give would be fair.
From the bedroom came Sara's shout: "MOM! SERA STOLE MY BRIDGE!"
Emily exhaled through her nose.
"There's your next mission, Field Leader."
Luke almost laughed despite himself.
He set down his cup and went.
The next forty minutes moved with a rhythm he had not realised he needed.
Fix the bridge dispute.
Read half a storybook before both girls demanded alternate endings.
Lose another game.
Help Sara find the missing cap for a marker that had been in her own hair the entire time.
Listen to Sera explain, with severe seriousness, that a city required zoning laws or "everything collapses and people panic."
At one point, Sara climbed into his lap mid-sentence and fell quiet.
At another, Sera sat close enough for her shoulder to press against his arm while pretending she was only reaching for a pencil.
Luke stayed still for both.
He did not trust himself to do much else.
Petra remained silent.
Not absent.
Watching.
But silent.
That silence unsettled him more than her lectures.
Around noon, Luke checked the time and stood.
"I should go."
Immediate protest.
"No!"
"You just came!"
"We didn't even finish district tax policy," Sera said, offended at the injustice.
Luke crouched to eye level.
"I'll come again this week."
Sara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Promise promise? Or adult promise?"
The question cut deeper than it should have.
"Promise promise."
She held out her little finger.
He hooked his own.
Sera watched, then rolled her eyes and did the same a second later, as if to maintain legal consistency between siblings.
When he stood, both girls hugged him. Sara with full force, Sera with one arm and a careful face that tried not to show too much.
At the door, Emily handed him his coat from the hook.
"You left this last winter," she said.
He took it.
"Thanks."
She nodded toward the hallway. "Message when you get home. Roads are icy."
It sounded automatic. Domestic. Old habit surfacing before either of them could stop it.
Luke said, "I will."
Then he opened the door.
Stepped out.
Turned back once.
The girls were behind Emily now, one peeking around each side of her. Sara was waving wildly. Sera lifted two fingers in a small, almost-embarrassed sign.
Luke raised his hand in return.
The door closed.
The stairwell was colder than before.
He descended slowly, hearing the building's ordinary noises through concrete and pipes. A washing machine rattling somewhere. A kettle whistle. A child laughing two floors down.
Outside, snowmelt ran thin along the curb.
The sky was pale silver with hard light under the clouds
Luke put on his coat and started down the street.
Halfway to the corner, the ring on his finger pulsed.
Once.
A low vibration against bone.
He stopped walking.
Petra spoke immediately, voice stripped of all amusement.
"Do not turn your head too quickly. Across the street. Bus stop shelter."
Luke kept his pace, eyes forward, peripheral vision widening. Under the scratched plexiglass of the shelter stood a figure in black.
Hood up.
Face covered.
Still as iron.
A Shadow Cult robe silhouette.
But wrong.
The posture was too deliberate. Too performative. Like someone imitating a myth they had studied from secondhand reports.
The figure did not move.
Neither did Luke.
He walked past the next storefront, pretending to check his phone, and caught the reflection in the dark glass.
Still there.
Watching.
Petra's voice lowered.
"Not the real ones."
Luke's jaw tightened.
"I know."
"Do not engage. You are in recovery, and this street has civilian density."
"I know."
He turned at the corner.
By the time he glanced back, the bus stop was empty.
No footsteps in slush.
No retreating shape.
Nothing.
Just a torn transit schedule fluttering in the wind.
Luke stood there a second too long.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message from Emily.
They're asking when you're coming again.
He stared at the words, then typed:
Soon. And this time I won't be late.
He hit send. At the edge of hearing, somewhere behind him, a car door clicked shut.
Petra said nothing.
The ring pulsed again.
And the winter city, bright and indifferent, kept breathing around him.