Together, the three of us had piled on lights and filled the boughs with memories.

Still, the tree had never seemed complete. At least, not until now.

In between Dad’s yellow hardhat and Charlie’s purple octopus, and directly next to my music note, there now hung the rose ornament I’d smuggled home that afternoon.

I took a step back, eyeing my handiwork, at last satisfied that each of us had a place on the tree.

Tick, tock, tick . . .

We didn’t have a clock in the parlor on our side of the house, but the ticking floated to me through the walls the same way his music did, though I never had to strain to hear the piano or the violin. Or that voice . . . calling to me.

I glanced in the direction of the mantel and smiled at the fireplace’s in-progress state.

Now that his leg was better, Dad had restarted work on the house. The doctor had advised him to begin with smaller projects and tackle the bigger ones in the spring. Currently, he was out of the house. On a hunt for supplies with, of all people, Ms. Geary, the school librarian. The single school librarian.

This wasn’t their first excursion, either, and somehow during their last one, she and Dad had found ceramic tiles with birds on them. Though they weren’t the same as the originals, Dad had matched them closely enough to make my heart flutter with happiness.

Eventually, Dad did ask about Lucas, like I’d known he would. In answer, I’d told him truthfully that the two of us had decided to just be friends. He’d pressed for more information, of course, so that’s when I turned around and started asking a few of my own questions about Ms. Geary. After that, he stopped prodding so much. I returned the favor, and in that way, we reached an unspoken truce about not prying.

Now the bird tiles he and Ms. Geary had scored sat in a small pile next to the fireplace A few of them had already been set. Dad had also located the figurehead of the deer for the center, which he’d promised to let me install when the time came.

I still found it interesting that even after I’d convinced Dad to let us stay here—to keep this house—he continued to take the greatest care with its restoration. Aside from slowing down and accepting a construction job in town that would start in the spring, nothing had changed regarding his plans for Moldavia.

And maybe that had something to do with the fact that Erik still sent him dreams.

I still had dreams, too. Except I knew they weren’t dreams.

Wanting to check on Charlie, who had returned to sleeping in her own room after I’d delivered the news that Zedok was no more, I spun toward the open pocket doors—and jumped to see him standing there.

Erik’s gaze gave nothing away as it beamed at me from behind the familiar mask—that of Valor—that he still wore, though more for his sake than mine. His face, unchanged from the one I had revealed that day when he’d played for me, wasn’t one I would have cringed or shied from. Still, the barrier helped him to navigate a reality—or rather, a love—where all others had been obliterated.