He came at nine.

Alone, as I'd asked. He was in plain clothes — the kind that cost a great deal but performed casualness. He had the instinct of someone trained to fill rooms, contained in someone trying not to fill mine.

I made tea. It was something to do with my hands.

He sat at my kitchen table.

I sat across.

"His name is Kael," I said.

Aric held his cup.

"How old?" he said.

"Five," I said. "He'll be six in March."

Six years ago. March. The math was simple.

"He's mine," Aric said. Not a question.

"Yes," I said.

He set the cup down.

"Why?" he said. Quiet. Controlled. The voice of someone holding something very tightly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were engaged," I said.

"You could have told me before the engagement was final," he said. "You could have—"

"What?" I said. "What would you have done, Aric? Broken the engagement? For a commoner woman from the north? That's not how Valdenne works."

"I would have found a way—"

"You would have tried," I said. "And while you were trying, Cassius Vorn would have found another way. His way." I held his gaze. "I know what the Regent does with inconvenient things."

Aric was quiet.

"He's never—"

"The Scholar-Duke's mistress," I said. "Twelve years ago. She was pregnant. She disappeared into a monastery and the child was raised by distant cousins and never acknowledged."

"That's not—"

"That's documented," I said. "I researched. Before I left." I held his gaze. "I wasn't going to put my son in a monastery. I wasn't going to let him be managed."

Aric looked at the table.

"So you ran," he said.

"I protected him," I said. "There's a difference."

"You took him away from his father," he said.

"His father was marrying someone else," I said. "His father's country has a regent who solves problems." I held his gaze. "What would you have had me do?"

He didn't answer.

I refilled the tea.

"He's a good boy," I said, more quietly. "He's curious and he's kind and he asks questions in threes. He's learning to read. He loves the greenhouse." I looked at my hands. "I've given him everything I could give him."

"He deserves more than that," Aric said.

"He deserves safety," I said. "That's what I gave him."

"And now?" Aric said. "Now that I'm here?"

I held the cup.

"Now I don't know," I said honestly.

He looked at me.

"I want to see him," he said.

"I know," I said.

"When?"

"When I've figured out how to explain it to him," I said. "He's five. He doesn't know he has a father."

"What did you tell him?"

"That his father lives far away," I said. "And loves him from a distance."

Aric's jaw tightened.

"That's not enough," he said.

"I know," I said. "I've always known." I held his gaze. "But it was what I had."

He sat at my kitchen table and looked at me with an expression I remembered from six years ago — the one underneath the managed surface, the one that showed when he'd decided something.

"I'm not leaving," he said.

"I didn't expect you to," I said.

"Whatever needs to be arranged—"

"Aric," I said.

He stopped.

"Meet him first," I said. "Before we arrange anything. Meet him and let him meet you. Everything else can wait until we know how that goes."

He held my gaze.

"All right," he said.

"Tomorrow?" I said. "I'll talk to him tonight."

"Tomorrow," he said.

He stood.

At the door he stopped.

"Priya," he said.

"Yes."

"For what it's worth," he said. "I looked. After you left. For a long time."

I held the door.

"I know," I said. "I was careful."

Something moved in his expression.

"Yes," he said. "You were."

He left.

I stood in the kitchen and thought about what *tomorrow* meant and what I was going to say to a five-year-old about the father who had arrived at the end of the lane.