“I have a better idea,” Raven said. His voice was clear and unwavering. He took a shaky step, then two. After that, he was striding toward the door, pulling Jack along with him. Jack had to hurry to catch up. Together they made their way through the hallway, where Raven’s father had hung up portraits of his first wife. Arianna smiled back at them all the way down the stairs. The foyer was free of her, but only because it was sparsely decorated. Two end tables framed the ebony door. Two vases sat, emptied of roses. Raven opened the door and led Jack out of Holloway Manor, with its jagged gray stones, into the orchard where the girls were waiting.

They were supposed to be taking down the fort, but it was clear they’d gotten a little… distracted. Lily brushed apple blossoms from her hair, struggling to smooth her wrinkled clothing. Belle, on the other hand, did nothing to hide the fact that they’d been up to mischief, and she pulled Lily close as her friends approached. “You’re up,” she said to Raven.

He nodded. “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you about your time in foster care.”

Belle flinched, and Lily stood on her tiptoes, brushing a kiss against Belle’s cheek. “We’re not letting them place you in some home,” Belle said fiercely. “We’ve already been talking about it—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Raven agreed. At least, Jack thought he was agreeing with their plan, until he said, “I wanted to know how long it took to place you in a home. I’ll be eighteen in a year, and it seems like a waste of time for them to spend months pairing me up with some family, just to have me turn around and leave a few months after that. Better to let me get emancipated. Then I can stay here.”

He gestured to the estate around him, and suddenly, Jack started to understand. With Raven’s father in prison, and his mother buried six feet under the earth, this estate could legally be his. But not unless he was an adult.

“I don’t know how quickly they’ll set the trial. How quickly they’ll convict. But if I can prove that I can take care of myself between then and now, I wouldn’t have to move in with any of you.” A pause, as Raven flashed an impish grin. “You could move in with me.”

“What?” It was Lily who spoke the words, because Lily had lost as much as Raven had. A father and a mother. She had nowhere to go. There was no way she’d be allowed to live in Andrew Kane’s house alone, and going back to the facility couldn’t have been a palatable option. She needed a home and she needed a family.

Jack wanted that for her.