The sound of the back door made my mother flinch.
Boots against tile. A man's voice:rough, steady, too familiar to belong to anyone else.
"Mom? You left the gate open again—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
I turned.
Emrys stood in the doorway, taller than I remembered, the same crooked scar cutting through his eyebrow.The one he got back when we were kids, trying to survive the streets. His hair was darker now, his eyes older, but still holding that quiet protectiveness I used to hide behind.
For a heartbeat, he didn't move. Then his face broke open with disbelief.
"...Sylvie?"
The sound of my name almost undid me. I nodded, the word catching. "Hey, Em."
He crossed the kitchen in a few quick steps, then froze, as if afraid I'd vanish again. But I didn't. So he wrapped me in his arms,tight, grounding, real.
"You're real," he whispered, voice cracking. "You came back."
I clung to him, shaking. "I didn't mean to be gone."
His hand cupped the back of my head. "You don't have to explain."
When he finally pulled back, his gaze caught on Reav, still standing quietly in the doorway. Her expression was unreadable, her silver hair dim in the kitchen light.
Emrys's tone shifted, wary. "Who the fuck is that?"
"My friend," I said. "She helped me find my way."
He looked between us, studying her too long, but didn't press.
Our mother not by blood, but by choice, by love,wiped her eyes and reached for me again. "You both were always mine," she murmured. "Paper doesn't make family."
Something in me cracked at that. Because it was true. She had taken us in together—two strays who'd somehow fit into her quiet world. We never remembered life before the streets, before her. Our parents, our origins... they were blanks. Scrubbed clean. Except for what we were.
After changing into Em's clothes, Reav and I settled in the dining room. Dinner was quiet. The kind that fills with everything unsaid. No one asked where I'd been. No one asked what had happened. They stayed quiet for my sake.
When the house finally grew still, I found Emrys in the kitchen again. The yellow light from the stove lamp carved deep lines into his face. A faded photograph lay on the table.me and him, years ago, holding sparklers.
"You kept it," I said softly.
He smiled, small and tired. "Couldn't throw away the only proof I had."
I sat across from him, tracing the edge of the photo. "You stopped believing I was alive."
He didn't deny it. "I stopped hoping I'd see you again. That's different."
Reav appeared quietly in the doorway, eyes lowered. "You were taken," she said, almost to herself. "Chosen. Targeted because of your bloodline."
Emrys frowned, half-understanding. "What are you talking about?"
She lifted her gaze, calm but cold. "Not tonight. You've earned one night of peace."
The clock ticked. Outside, the wind pressed against the windows. The world was too ordinary, too still—like it hadn't noticed what had broken beneath it.
Emrys stood and placed a hand on my shoulder,careful, protective. "You're home now, Sylvie. Whatever happens next, we face it together."
Reav nodded slightly, her voice low. "Together," she echoed.
For a moment, the world outside felt impossibly far away. The hum of the fridge. The creak of the old floorboards. The smell of tea still in the air. It was everything we'd lost, and somehow found again.
My mother's words lingered in my mind: Paper doesn't make family.
Maybe she was right. Maybe love was the only bond that mattered.
But as I glanced at Emrys,at the faint mark glowing beneath my sleeve.Another truth whispered through me, older, colder, truer:
Blood runs thicker than water.
And not all blood is human.