Even though Graham Quill was no longer a young man—even though he’d spent his whole life clinging to manners and propriety, determined to be the kind of elder his family could respect—tonight he’d clearly run out of patience.

  He’d called her name softly more than a dozen times.

  Cora ignored every single one.

  She left him no choice but to shout.

  The moment the roar hit her ears, Cora jolted awake. Her wide eyes were foggy with sleep as she turned her head, slow and confused, taking in the room.

  Everyone was staring.

  Something in her snapped into place. She straightened so fast her spine might have clicked, sitting bolt upright in the chair. Her face arranged itself into what she hoped looked like serious attention—like she’d been listening and thinking the entire time.

  “Awake now?” Graham asked, still gentle.

  Cora didn’t answer. A small part of her clung to a thin hope: maybe he wasn’t talking to her.

  “Awake now, Cora?” he asked again—this time clearly.

  Graham’s heart twisted in the familiar way it always did where she was concerned. Since his third son and daughter-in-law had died, the child had withdrawn into herself, sometimes going months without speaking. Then, a month ago, she’d spiked a sudden, vicious fever—so bad the family had all but accepted she was gone.

  And then she’d lived.

  Graham had taken it as a miracle. A sign that his lost son and his wife were watching, somehow, and had pushed their daughter back from the edge.

  He’d loved Cora fiercely ever since.

  The thought made him soften immediately, guilt pricking at the harshness of his earlier tone.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” he asked, voice lowered. “Do you want to go back to bed?”

  Around the table, everyone released the breath they’d been holding. That was more like it. The patriarch never truly had it in him to be hard on Cora.

  “I’m fine, Grandpa,” Cora said, standing up with shameless honesty. “I already slept enough.”

  “Oh, did I interrupt your sleep?” Graham’s mouth twitched, half amused, half annoyed. “Should we postpone this meeting, then? Let you get a good rest?”

  “Sure,” Cora said brightly. “That sounds great.”

  The rest of the family collectively went pale.

  Did she honestly not hear the sarcasm?

  Then again—only Cora could say something like that to Graham Quill and live to tell the tale. If anyone else had answered that way, they’d be shredded with insults and disciplined like a child.

  What unsettled them most was how different she’d become since recovering from her illness. Before, Cora had been timid, skittish as a rabbit. In tense, heavy situations like this, she’d usually shrink into herself and listen with frightened focus.

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  She wouldn’t have dared to sleep.

  Now she was sprawled on marble like she owned the place.

  Graham blinked, thrown off by her cheer. He wanted to scold her—he truly did—but the second he met her misty, innocent stare, the words wouldn’t come.

  So he changed direction.

  “Then tell me this,” he said, tone smoothing out. “How should we handle the crisis with the restaurant?”

  “What crisis?” Cora asked, even more lost. Her lips parted slightly, pink and unaware, as if she’d wandered into the wrong story.

  The table went dead quiet.

  Graham’s expression darkened so fast it startled even his sons. His voice shook a little—not with age, but with anger he was trying to leash.

  “Our supply line,” he said slowly. “The Agriculture Division has stopped selling to us. Our stock will run out any day. What do you suggest we do?”

  Cora didn’t hesitate.

  “Easy,” she said. “If we’re out, we take what we need.”

  She wasn’t joking.

  If something was out of reach, you grabbed it. If someone blocked you, you broke through. That had been her logic for as long as she could remember—her real remembering, anyway.

  But everyone at the table assumed she was being childish. Spoiled. Or worse—that the fever had scrambled her brain and she still wasn’t fully herself.

  No one took her seriously.

  Graham closed his eyes for a moment, the exhaustion showing at last. When he opened them again, he simply pressed a hand downward in a small gesture, telling her to sit.

  Then he stopped involving her.

  He hadn’t expected anything useful from her, and he wasn’t disappointed. Truthfully, he had no answers himself. He’d built a business from nothing and navigated countless storms, but Sterling House and the Alder Room had hit them where it hurt most—cutting off the one thing Quill Dining couldn’t replace.

  No ingredients meant no restaurant.

  No restaurant meant the Quills were finished.

  The discussion dragged on, circling the same problem until it felt like chewing glass. Evan and Dylan argued with their father, proposing measures, rejecting measures, proposing new ones only to watch them die on the table.

  Again and again, the conversation slammed into the same wall.

  Supply.

  It was late—deep into the night.

  Graham looked down the table at his daughters-in-law and the children. Everyone wore the strained, hollow look of people forcing themselves to sit properly while their minds were already sagging with fatigue.

  Everyone, that is, except Cora.

  She’d curled back down on the marble and fallen asleep again, as if the world’s weight had nothing to do with her.

  Graham found himself oddly moved.

  In a moment like this, when the whole household felt crushed by dread, she could still sleep. Either she was truly fearless—or she was the most open-hearted person among them.

  “Enough,” Graham said at last. “Go to bed. All of you.”

  “Dad,” Evan protested gently, “we still haven’t found a solution.”

  He carried the heaviest burden as the eldest, and it showed. The people he’d spent years flattering and cultivating had turned their faces away the second the Quills stumbled. No one wanted to risk angering the station’s ruling dynasties.

  Evan’s gaze drifted, without meaning to, to the empty chair.

  If his third brother were still alive, he thought bitterly, he’d be an Alliance colonel by now at least. Maybe they wouldn’t be so helpless.

  Graham waved a tired hand. “Go. Sitting here longer won’t conjure miracles. Sleep. Perhaps something will look different in the morning.”

  Evan and Dylan exchanged a look, then nodded to their wives.

  Tessa and Mara rose with the children and approached Graham. Tessa spoke first. “Good night, Father.”

  “Good night, Grandpa,” Cole and Caleb said together, voices matching.

  Graham smiled, the sternness easing. “Good night. You’re all exhausted. Get some rest.”

  Mara nudged her daughter. “Skye. Say good night to your grandfather.”

  Skye smiled sweetly. “Good night, Grandpa.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.”

  Once they’d all filed out, Dylan finally stood and walked toward Cora, intending to carry her to bed. Before he reached her, Graham spoke.

  “Go,” he said. “I’ll take her.”

  “Dad, your health—” Dylan started.

  Graham lifted his eyelids, unimpressed. “Do you think I’m so old I can’t carry my own granddaughter?”

  Dylan immediately grinned, placating. “Of course not. All right, you do it. Evan and I will head out.”

  Evan stood as well. “Please rest, Dad.”

  Graham nodded and watched them leave.

  When the door closed, he looked down at the dark spill of hair on the white marble and spoke softly, as if she might hear him even asleep.

  “So you really plan to make your grandfather’s old bones carry you back to your room?”

  Cora didn’t stir.

  If anything, her breathing grew heavier, deep and steady—perfectly content.