Chapter 12 · Family Truth

Twenty-fourth morning continuous.

Kael went home—not the academy, the crooked house in the slums where the hedge-witch spat at Ashford cheekbones.

The witch was gone. In her place, his mother sat at the table, hands wrapped around tea, eyes clear for the first time in any iteration.

"Sit, son."

Kael didn't sit. "You're dead."

"I'm bound." She looked older than memory. "Sit. Time slip days are the only days I can speak without puppet strings."

He sat.

"Your father didn't vanish," she said. "He founded the second loop. Tried to seal the breach. Failed. Serath wears him too, sometimes, when the dean face tires."

Kael's world tilted. "Father's alive?"

"In pieces. In the breach. That's why the Ashford men sign—bloodline key to the confluence."

"Dorian knows?"

"Dorian knows pieces. Corin knows more. Corin is your cousin—illegitimate, like you, but raised inside the caretaker's house."

Kael stood. "Why sell us?"

"To buy you choice." Her eyes glistened. "Soul-share isn't surrender. It's anchor. Without my share in you, you'd forget the loop by day ten. I hold your memory in my pain."

"And Dorian?"

"His share is ambition. Different flavor. Same chain."

Footsteps outside.