Jasmine’s smile arrived a half-second after it should have. "Yes." She smoothed the edge of her expression carefully. "We should."
The look she turned on Seraphine after was harder to categorize. She stood there for a mont, hands folded in front of her, working sothing through internally before she spoke. "Doctor Sera." Her voice was polite, asured. "What do you like to eat?"
Seraphine glanced at her. "Call Sera." She reached for the spoon on the tray. "And I’m not picky. Anything is fine."
She scooped up the first spoonful and held it out toward Marigold. "It’s getting cold. Open up."
What happened next surprised everyone in the room, including Jasmine, who Seraphine suspected had been managing Marigold’s eating habits long enough to have lost so hope about them. Marigold ate.
Not reluctantly, not with the drawn-out negotiation of a child who treats every bite like a concession. She just ate. Opened her mouth, chewed, swallowed, opened again.
Seraphine kept the rhythm steady and unhurried, not making a production of it, just spooning and waiting, spooning and waiting like she used to do for Bryan.
The plate was empty before anyone said anything about it.
Seraphine looked at the clean bowl, then at Marigold. "There. Do you want more?"
Marigold nodded, solemn and certain. "I’ll eat more." Her eyes fixed on Seraphine with the quiet, unblinking focus of soone about to na their price. "If you co ho with ."
Before Seraphine could figure out how to answer that, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She bent a little, pulled it out, and answered.
"Sera." Corvine’s voice was dry and unhurried. "Should I co upstairs?"
"No, no." Seraphine was already straightening up from the bed. "I’m coming down."
She lowered the phone and looked at Marigold and smiled. "I’m leaving now. But I promise you’ll see soon, okay?"
The change that moved across Marigold’s face happened slowly. The brightness didn’t disappear all at once but dimd the way a light dims when the power starts to go, still there but lesser. Her small hands settled in her lap. Her chin dropped slightly.
"I thought mommy would want with her."
The words hit Seraphine sowhere low and unexpected, right below the sternum, sharp enough that she actually felt it physically. She opened her mouth —
"Don’t worry, Mari." Voren’s voice ca from behind her, calm and unhurried, like this was already decided. "Sera will be moving in with us soon."
Seraphine turned her head and looked at him, he t her gaze without flinching. No apology, no qualification. The confidence in it was extraordinary, not arrogant exactly, just completely unbothered by the possibility that he might be wrong.
She held his gaze for a mont, one eyebrow lifting just slightly.
Marigold let out a sigh of relief, but the mont Seraphine was close to the door, she called out. "Mommy."
Seraphine turned to see Marigold’s arms were open. Both of them, stretched out as wide as her small fra allowed, the way children ask for things they want completely and without embarrassnt, holding nothing back.
Sothing moved through Seraphine’s chest, warm and sudden and a little frightening in how strong it was. She walked back to the bed without deciding to, sat down, and pulled Marigold into her arms.
The mont their bodies made contact, it was like a switch flipped sowhere in the back of her skull. The headache she’d been quietly carrying for the last few minutes was just gone. Not faded. Not dulled. Gone. Like soone had reached in and lifted it out cleanly.
Seraphine pulled back and looked at Marigold.
The little girl giggled, delighted with herself for reasons that were entirely her own. "Again, again."
Seraphine pulled her back in. And this ti, it wasn’t just the absence of pain — sothing settled over her that she didn’t have a clinical word for.
Peace wasn’t quite right. It was more than that. More specific. Like every restless, circling thing inside her had simply stopped moving, all at once, for no reason she could explain.
She stayed there a mont longer than she needed to.
When she finally let go, she looked at Marigold’s face, and the need to understand this child, who she was, sharpened into sothing she could no longer pretend was just curiosity.
"I’ll see you soon." Her voice ca out quieter than intended. "I promise."
Her eyes moved briefly to the side of Marigold’s neck, then to her hair, and she caught herself thinking about it. One strand would be enough. Just enough to run the test she’d been trying not to admit she needed to run. She reached slightly, almost without aning to but then her gaze t Voren’s.
Voren’s attention and Jasmine’s landed on her at the sa mont, different in quality but equally precise. Seraphine’s hand stilled, and she smoothed Marigold’s hair gently instead, just a simple, clean gesture, and stood up.
Voren walked her out, down the hall, into the elevator, the numbers descending in silence for a mont before he spoke.
"Thank you." He was looking at the elevator doors, not at her, and sothing about that made it feel more genuine, like he wasn’t performing gratitude, just stating sothing true. "That’s the first ti she’s eaten a proper amount. The right amount."
Seraphine kept her eyes forward too. But her mind had already gone sowhere dical, cataloging what she’d seen. Marigold’s fra.
The fineness of her wrists. The way her face was small in a way that might just be genetics or might be sothing else. Malnutrition didn’t always look dramatic. Sotis it just looked like a small child who was slightly smaller than she should be.
Was it her diet? Her age? Sothing else entirely?
Seraphine filed it in her mind, added it to the growing list of questions that now had a dedicated space in the back of her mind with Marigold’s na on it.
"Don’t worry about it." The elevator opened and they stepped out into the lobby. "I’ll clear my schedule the day after tomorrow. We can talk properly."
Voren nodded once.
Outside, Corvine’s car sat idling at the curb, hazards blinking orange in the early evening air. The city moved around it the way New York always did, indifferent, continuous, loud in that specific ambient way that you only really noticed when you were tired.
Voren reached the car first and opened the door. Not showy about it. Just did it, stepped back, waited.
Seraphine got in.
She watched him through the window as Corvine pulled away from the curb. He stood there on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, watching the car until it moved into traffic and the distance swallowed him.
Seraphine faced forward in deep thoughts for about thirty seconds.
Then she turned slightly toward the driver’s seat. "Corvine." Her voice was even, almost conversational. "Can you describe my daughter for ?"
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