Elara’s POV

The potato peeler slipped. A thin curl of skin dropped into the bowl.

"Careful, sweetheart." Margaret’s hand closed over mine, guiding the blade at a gentler angle. "You’re pressing too hard. Let the edge do the work."

"Sorry." I adjusted my grip. "I’ve never been good at this."

"Nonsense. You’ve been peeling potatoes all week without a single nick." She bumped my hip with hers. "You’re a natural. You just don’t believe it yet."

I smiled. A real one. The kind that didn’t feel like it cost anything.

The kitchen smelled like rosemary and slow-roasted meat. Margaret had been tending the roast since mid-afternoon. She moved through her kitchen like a dancer—reaching for jars without looking, adjusting the fire by instinct, tasting broth from a wooden spoon and nodding to herself. Everything she did had rhythm. Purpose. She made it look effortless.

I envied that. The ease of belonging somewhere.

"Hand me that dish, would you, darling?" She pointed with her chin toward the shelf above the stove.

I set down the peeler and reached for it. Fine white porcelain with delicate blue wildflowers painted along the rim. Old. Well-loved. The glaze was cracked in places, smooth from decades of use.

"These were my grandmother’s," Margaret said, taking the dish from me with both hands, reverent. "She carried them with her in a horse cart a long time ago. Didn’t lose a single plate."

"They’re beautiful."

"They’re home." She set it on the counter and patted my cheek. "Now finish those potatoes before the boys get back and eat them raw."

As if on cue, the back door banged open.

Finnian came in first, wiping his hands on a rag already black with grease. His golden hair was dark with sweat and pushed back from his forehead. Behind him, Robert stomped his boots on the mat, leaving muddy prints anyway.

"Something smells like heaven," Robert announced. He crossed the kitchen in three strides, caught Margaret around the waist, and gave her an exaggerated military salute with his free hand. "Reporting for dinner duty, General."

Margaret swatted his arm. "Go wash. Both of you. You smell like the inside of a furnace."

"That’s the smell of honest labor, woman."

"That’s the smell of a man who’s not sitting at my table until he scrubs those hands."

Robert grinned. Kissed her temple. Disappeared down the hall.

Finnian caught my eye as he passed. "Everything okay, Sarah?"

Sarah. The name still felt like borrowed clothing. Too loose in some places, too tight in others.

"Perfect," I said. "Your mother’s teaching me her secrets."

"Dangerous territory." He smiled. "She guards that roast recipe with her life."

Margaret pointed a wooden spoon at him. "Wash." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

He went.

Twenty minutes later, we sat around the table. Margaret’s grandmother’s plates held generous portions of roast, golden potatoes, and roasted root vegetables glistening with herb butter. Candles flickered in mismatched holders. The window was cracked open just enough to let the evening breeze carry in the scent of the garden.

Robert said a short blessing. Margaret served. Finnian poured water from a clay pitcher.

I sat between Margaret and Finnian and tried not to think about how easily I’d slipped into this. The rhythm of it. The simple choreography of a family sitting down together.

For three weeks, I’d been Sarah. Finnian’s distant cousin from the capital, down on her luck, needing somewhere quiet to recover. The story was thin enough that any serious scrutiny would shred it. But the townspeople didn’t ask too many questions. And the Morrisons treated me like I’d always been here.

Margaret refilled my plate without asking. Robert told a story about a horse that kicked over his anvil. Finnian laughed and corrected the details. Margaret shook her head and called them both ridiculous.

I ate. I listened. I let the warmth seep into the cold places.

After dinner, Margaret brought out a pie. Golden crust. The smell of cinnamon and baked apples. She cut thick slices and slid one in front of me.

"Eat," she ordered. "You’re still too thin."

"Margaret, I just had plenty of—"

"Too. Thin." She pointed at the pie with her knife. "Eat."

I ate. It was perfect. Sweet and tart and warm. The kind of thing that made your eyes close on the first bite.

After the plates were cleared and the kitchen scrubbed, Margaret dried her hands on her apron and gave me a look that permitted no argument.

"Living room. Both of you. Finnian, put on something from the memory stone. Something with cowboys."

"Margaret—"

"You’ve been working since dawn, sweetheart. Rest." She nudged me toward the hallway. "Go."

Finnian was already setting up the memory stone on the low table in the living room. The crystal hummed softly as he activated it. A dusty frontier landscape flickered to life above its surface.

I sank into the armchair. The fire crackled in the hearth. On screen, a lone rider crossed a desert valley.

My shoulders loosened. My breathing slowed.

This was what safety felt like. This ordinary, unremarkable evening. No hidden agendas. No whispered conspiracies. Just roast and pie and bad cowboy adventures and a family that called me sweetheart.

I could almost forget.

Almost.

The knock came like a gunshot.

Sharp, violent blows against the front door. The wood shuddered in its frame.

I jumped to my feet. Instinct. Automatic. My hand was already reaching for the door handle when Finnian’s fingers locked around my wrist.

He wasn’t looking at me.

He was looking at the door. His entire body had gone rigid. Every muscle locked. His nostrils flared once. Twice.

"Finnian?" My voice came out thin.

His grip tightened. His jaw set hard.

"Sovereign." The word was barely a whisper. "I can smell him. A sovereign is at our door."

The blood drained from my face.

No.

No, no, no—

Three weeks. Three weeks of silence and safety and borrowed names and Margaret’s pies and this small, fragile peace I’d cobbled together from scraps. Three weeks of convincing myself that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t find me. That I was too small. Too far. Too nothing for an emperor to chase.

"ELA!"

His voice hit the walls like thunder. Deep. Commanding. Furious. It rolled through the house and shook the candle flames.

My knees buckled.

Finnian caught me. His arm hooked around my waist. I couldn’t feel my hands. My vision was tunneling—darkness creeping in from the edges, narrowing to a pinpoint.

"Ela, I know you’re in there! Open the door!"

Margaret was already moving. She appeared in the hallway like a woman who’d done this before. Her face was calm. Her eyes were not.

"Darling." Her hands cupped my face. Steady. Warm. "Look at me. Sweetie. Look at me right now."

I couldn’t breathe. My chest was caving in.

"Baby, listen to my voice." She pulled me away from Finnian. Her arm wrapped around my shoulders—half embrace, half carry. My feet barely touched the ground. "Robert!"

Robert emerged from the back hallway. One look at Margaret’s face, and his expression went flat. Hard. The jovial man from dinner vanished.

"Kitchen," Margaret said.

He moved.

She half-dragged me through the hallway, past the kitchen, to a narrow pantry I’d walked past a hundred times without noticing. She pushed aside a shelf of preserved jams. Behind it, a wooden hatch sat flush with the floorboards. Robert was already pulling it open.

Stone steps. A small underground cellar. Cool air rose from the darkness below—damp earth and old timber.

"Down you go, baby." Margaret guided me onto the first step. My legs wouldn’t cooperate. She held me upright with raw strength. "That’s it. One step. Another."

The pounding came again. Louder. The whole house trembled.

"Robert. Finnian. The door." Margaret’s voice was iron.

I heard their footsteps recede.

The cellar was small. Stone walls. A single cot with a wool blanket. A water jug. A lantern that Margaret lit with practiced hands. The hatch closed above us.

Darkness. Then the soft amber glow of the lantern.

I was shaking so badly my teeth chattered. Margaret lowered herself beside me on the cot and pulled me against her chest.

"Shh." She stroked my hair with gentle, motherly hands. "You’re safe, baby. No one can find you here. We’ll handle this."