That night Leo couldn't sleep.
He lay on his narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the old house settle around him. Somewhere down the hall, one of the younger children coughed in their sleep. The floorboards creaked as Mrs. Hale made her midnight rounds.
Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
But underneath them, if he listened closely enough, and he always did now, couldn't stop himself, there was something else. A pressure at the edges of his awareness. A weight pressing against the wards that Ingrid had spent years weaving around this place.
He got up.
The hallway was dark, but Leo had walked these floors since he was seven years old. He knew every creaking board, every loose step. He moved through the house like a ghost, down the back stairs, out through the kitchen door that always stuck in humid weather.
The night air hit him like cold water. Clear sky. Half moon. The kind of night that should have felt peaceful.
He walked to the eastern fence, the place where the barrier felt thinnest. He had been coming here for months now, testing himself against it. Trying to understand what he was becoming. What any of them were becoming.
He pressed his palm against the invisible wall.
Not with his body. With the thing that had been growing in him since the crystal, the thing that answered when he reached for it at night and sometimes answered when he didn't. He pushed it against the barrier the way he'd push weight at the gym, steady, controlled, feeling for the limit.
The barrier pushed back.
Three months ago it had knocked him flat on his first attempt. A month ago he could hold against it for thirty seconds. Tonight he held for nearly two minutes before his nose started bleeding and he had to pull back.
Not enough. Not nearly enough for what was out there.
But more than yesterday.
He wiped his nose and kept his hand against the glass-like resistance for a moment longer.
Keep going, he told himself. Wherever you end up, keep going.
It pushed back. Warm, almost alive. Ingrid's work, years of careful magic layered like sediment. But even sediment eroded. Even mountains wore down.
And on the other side...
He felt them. Shadows that weren't shadows. Shapes that pressed against the barrier like faces against glass. They couldn't see him, not exactly. But they knew something was here. Something they wanted.
The twins.
He pulled his hand back. His fingers were trembling.
"You've been out here every night this week."
He didn't turn. He had heard her footsteps in the grass.
Ingrid moved to stand beside him, a small woman, unremarkable in appearance, the kind of person you would pass on the street without a second glance. But there was something in her eyes that made Leo feel like a child again.
"I can feel them," he said. "Every night, they're closer."
"Yes."
"The barrier is weakening."
"Yes."
He waited for her to say something reassuring. To tell him he was wrong, that she had it under control, that the wards would hold for another century.
She didn't.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," he said.
He turned to look at her having expected a response. "You're not going to try to stop me?"
Ingrid gazed out at the treeline, at the darkness beyond the fence. Her face was unreadable.
"When I was young," she said, "I thought power was something you accumulated. Like coins in a jar. The more you had, the safer you were." She paused. "I was wrong. Power isn't protection. It's just a different kind of target."
"Then what is protection?"
"Knowing when to fight. Knowing when to run. Knowing when to ask for help." She looked at him. "You're not running, Leo. You're going to find the help we need."
"What if I can't? What if there's no one out there who-"
"Then you'll come back anyway." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "And we'll face whatever comes together. But I don't think that's what will happen."
"Why not?"
She almost smiled. "Because I've lived a very long time. And I've learned to recognize the ones who come back stronger."
They stood in silence for a moment. The shadows pressed against the barrier. The barrier held.
"The twins," Leo said quietly. "They're special, aren't they? More than you've told me."
Ingrid's expression didn't change. "Everyone is special, in their own way."
"That…..wasn't the answer I hoped for."
"No. It isn't." She turned to go back to the house. "Get some sleep, Leo. Tomorrow will be hard enough without exhaustion."
She was halfway across the lawn when she stopped.
"One more thing." She didn't turn around. "When you're out there, learning what you need to learn, don't forget who taught you first. Don't forget what you're fighting for."
"The barrier?"
"No." Now she did turn, and her eyes caught the moonlight. "The children behind it."
She walked inside. Leo stayed by the fence until the cold crept into his bones, until even the shadows seemed to lose interest and drift away.
Then he went inside to pack.
----
The morning arrived.
Darwin was crying about something, teething, probably, his small fist shoved into his mouth, tears tracking down his light cheeks. Marcus lay in the basket beside him, watching his brother with those dark, ancient eyes. Always watching. Always quiet.
Leo stood in the doorway of the nursery, his leather bag packed and waiting by the stairs.
He had come to say goodbye. But now that he was here, the words wouldn't come. What did you say to infants? They wouldn't remember this moment. They wouldn't remember him at all.
But he would remember them.
He crossed to the baskets and crouched down, studying their faces. Darwin's crying had subsided to hiccups. Marcus's eyes tracked Leo's movement with an intensity that seemed impossible for a child so young.
"I'm going to come back," Leo said quietly. "I don't know when. I don't know what I'll be when I do. But I'm going to come back, and I'm going to make sure nothing ever hurts you."
Darwin hiccupped.
Marcus blinked.
Leo reached out and touched each of their foreheads, just for a moment. Darwin's skin was warm and damp from crying. Marcus's was cool, almost unnaturally so.
"Grow up strong," he whispered. "Both of you. And when things get dark..." He stopped. Swallowed. "Just remember someone out there is fighting for you. Even if you don't know who."
He stood up. His chest felt tight.
He made himself walk away.
----
"You're really going."
He turned.
Lucia stood at the end of the hallway, her dark hair braided severely back from her face, arms crossed tight against her chest. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her jaw set.
"I have to."
"That's what you keep saying." Her voice was flat. "Like saying it makes it true."
Leo set down his bag. He crossed to her, and for a moment they just stood there.
"I was at the barrier last night," Leo said quietly. "They're getting bolder. Every week, there are more of them. And the wards..."
"I know about the wards."
"Then you know I can't stop it. Not like this. Not with what I am now." He looked back toward the nursery. "Those boys are going to need protection I can't give them. Not yet."
Lucia's jaw tightened. "So you're going to leave them? Leave us?"
"I'm going to find people who can teach me more. Others like us. There have to be others out there. Practitioners who know things even Ingrid doesn't." He paused. "She taught me control. But control isn't enough. I need power. Real power. The kind that can hold back what's coming."
"And if you don't find it?"
"Then I'll come back anyway," he said finally. "And we'll figure something else out."
Lucia's expression flickered.
"Miss Ingrid said the same thing. Almost word for word."
"Maybe that's because it's true."
Leo reached into his bag and pulled out a small object: a carved wooden pendant, shaped like a tree. He had made it himself, in the quiet hours when he should have been sleeping. The wood was oak, taken from the old tree by the chapel. He had spent weeks carving it, sanding it smooth.
"Give this to Darwin when he's old enough," he said. "Tell him... tell him there's someone out there who's going to come back for them. Someone who's going to make sure nothing hurts them."
Lucia took the pendant. Her fingers were shaking.
"What about Marcus?"
Leo almost smiled. "Marcus won't need a pendant. Marcus will remember things he shouldn't be able to. He'll know."
"How can you be sure?"
"I can't. But I watched him just now, in the nursery. The way he looks at people." Leo shook his head. "That boy sees everything. He'll know."
He picked up his bag.
"Keep them safe, Lucia. Keep yourself safe. And when the barrier finally breaks..." He stopped. "Don't let them see you afraid. Kids can smell fear. It makes everything worse."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Yeah." He met her eyes. "I am."
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Lucia crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around him.
Leo stiffened. But Lucia held on, her face pressed against his shoulder, and after a moment he let himself hold her back. She smelled like flour and lavender and the herbs she hung in her window. Like home.
"You better come back," she whispered into his coat. "You hear me? You better come back, Leo."
His arms tightened around her. Just for a moment.
"I will."
She pulled away first, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She didn't look at him as she stepped aside to let him pass.
He walked past her, down the stairs, through the kitchen where Mrs. Hale was pretending not to cry over a pot of oatmeal. She didn't look up as he passed, but her shoulders shook.
Leo paused at the front door.
The morning light was pale gold, filtering through the windows. Outside, the world looked normal. Safe. The kind of world where monsters didn't exist and children didn't need protection from things that lurked in shadows.
He knew better now.
He looked back once, at the orphanage, at the worn wooden floors, at the stairs that led up to sleeping children. At Lucia, standing in the hallway with a pendant clutched against her chest.
"I'll come back," he said. "I promise."
Then he stepped out into the morning light.
The barrier pressed against him as he approached the gate, warm, familiar, like a hand on his shoulder. He had walked through it a hundred times before. But this time felt different. This time, he wasn't sure when he would walk through it again.
He pushed forward.
The barrier let him pass.
And for the first time in ten years, Leo stood on the other side of Ingrid's protection. The world looked the same: same trees, same road, same pale morning sky.
But it felt different. Colder. Emptier.
He pulled his coat tighter and started walking.
----
In the nursery, Darwin stopped crying.
Marcus reached across the space between their baskets and touched his brother's hand. Their fingers curled together, tiny, instinctive.
Downstairs, Lucia stood alone in the hallway, clutching a wooden pendant shaped like a tree.
She didn't cry. She had made herself a promise years ago, when she had first felt the darkness pressing at the edges of this place.
I will protect them.
She just hadn't expected to do it alone.