Redhawk Caldera a blemish on your fragile little psyche

i know, vesper said quietly, voice thick. it was true— for all the storms that had been raging in her head these last months, the darkling had always known in her bones that she belonged to mou and maegi. but she still didn't see why phox ever had to know, why she ever had to know, anything different. she could have lived a whole life on the island, the six of them, and never have felt that something was missing.

she finally met maegi's gaze, then, breathing deep through flared nostrils. lying is wrong, she quoted her younger self, but i don't want that to ever change. you are my mother. mou is my father.

that they both were forcing phox upon her felt like a betrayal of those facts. but all of these deeper emotions that vesper was struggling to navigate were not things she could even begin to understand how to communicate.

boo is my sister, she emphasized. and then, with uncharacteristic venom, more than prevost ever was. more than peregrine is my brother.

vesper blinked back the heat in her eyes, finding it hard to breathe and speak. i never wanted anything to change. we were happy. and now? none of them were.