"You knew?!" Mara gasped.
Rosa let out a watery, exhausted laugh, her thumb gently wiping a smear of blood from Nico's bruised cheekbone.
"I am old, Mara. I am not blind," Rosa said softly.
She looked between them, her eyes softening with a deep, maternal warmth that completely defied the violence of the evening. "There is a saying… what an elder sees sitting down, a child cannot see even when standing on the tallest tree. You two thought you were being so careful. So invisible. But the truth has a way of taking up space, no matter how hard you try to shrink it."
She stepped back, pulling her thick wool shawl tighter against the biting cold. "But we are not having this conversation in the freezing wind with a bounty on your heads. Come inside. Both of you. Before I freeze to death looking at you."
Nico didn't hesitate.
He held Mara securely against his chest, adjusting his grip as he carried her up the stone steps and through the heavy oak doors of the chalet.
