“Have they looked into my past?” Lynell asks.

Zach nods. “That’s why I was assigned to Danny. But last I heard, they didn’t know you ever had a child.”

Lynell drops her face into her hands. She can’t help but picture her broken family tree. The branches tainted by this world.

A cousin who Registered her, an uncle who wants her dead, a brother who died before she ever knew him, an abusive stepfather, a broken mother, and a father who was killed by his own brother.

“Stop,” Daniel says, pulling her hand away from her face.

“What?” she asks.

He stands, pulling Lynell out of her chair and into his arms. “Thinking. You’re going to spiral.”

“I’m not.” She lays her head against his chest and grips his shirt.

“It’ll be okay,” he says.

Lynell shakes her head. “Is it even possible to have a normal family?”

“Probably not,” Daniel says. Lynell frowns and looks up at him. He smiles slightly and brushes his hand through her hair. “But it’s possible to have a loving family. And it’s okay to want a family.” He quietly says, so Zach can’t hear, “You’re not only an Elysian, baby. Or a Mize. You’re also a Carter.”

She buries herself into Daniel Carter, wrapping both arms around his waist, holding onto him. When he lets her go, she returns to her seat and watches Zach read the letter for the millionth time, mouthing each word.

After a long moment of silence, he looks up. “Did you ever meet your father?”

She shakes her head. “Mom never told me much about him. She told me he was a foreign king who came into her life just to give her the greatest gift of all. But he couldn’t stay because he had a kingdom to run. When I was older, I got some new stories. How they fell in love playing Scrabble and dreamed of running away together. But I never got more than ‘a king who liked Scrabble.’ A fat lot of help that was.” Lynell sighs. She’s about to keep talking when Daniel sits back down at the table and picks up the page.

“A king who liked Scrabble?” he repeats.

“Yeah.”

“That’s the only real story your mom ever told you about?” His eyes scan the words while he speaks. “That’s random, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” Lynell says. “It’s how they met and fell in love.”

“No, wait, I think Danny is onto something,” Zach says. He looks from Daniel to Lynell, his eyes going wide. “You were just a kid when your dad died. It makes sense that he may have told your mom something about the letter. Maybe he told her there was an important hidden message in it that you would need one day. Maybe he told her how to figure it out so she could help you.”

Lynell frowns, picturing every moment her mom spoke about her father. It wasn’t often and it always had to do with either him being a king or them playing Scrabble. And it was her mom who gave Lynell the idea to memorize the letter.