He liked to think the latter. “I’m sorry I haven’t checked in on you for a while. As you might have heard, there’s a war. And I had to do my part.”

Her throat bobbed with an involuntary swallow. An eyelash was perched on her hollow cheekbone. Liam reached forward to brush it away and let his thumb linger for just a moment. How long since he had last touched his mother, held her hand, cared for her himself? It had always been easier to pay for the nurses to do it, even if it meant eight more hours working in the boiler room or reshelving books in the stacks.

“I—I had to go away for a while. Had to get my head right. I thought if I could be strong enough, then no one could ever take anything from me.”

He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying; he only felt it when the first tear slid down his chin. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t look her in the eye when everything he’d done—splitting worlds apart, unleashing monsters, conquering them, destroying the Third Reich’s access to it all—when none of it could undo what one drunken bastard with a tire iron had wrought.

Then Daniel was leaning over him, brushing the tears from his cheek. Liam sucked in a breath and caught Daniel’s hand in his own. Met his gaze, dark and heavy with everything they’d endured, everything yet to come.

Please, Liam mouthed. Sit with me.

Daniel gratefully sank into the other chair. Did he imagine it, or did his ma look Daniel’s way?

“You were right about a lot of things, Ma, but wrong about some. It’s okay, cause I was, too.” Liam squeezed Daniel’s knee. “But I’m going to be here for you now. We won’t have to worry anymore.”

Yes—she was definitely looking at Daniel now. Did he imagine it, or was the good side of her mouth trying to curl into a smile?

“Ma, this is Daniel. He’s very important to me. I—I think I might be in love with him.” He glanced shyly at Daniel, cheeks reddening. “He’s an idiot like me sometimes, but I let him get away with it.”

Daniel scoffed at that. “You’re one to talk.”

“The movers’ll be here soon, Ma. Princeton wasn’t so good for you. I wasn’t so good for you here. The place they’re putting us up, it’s gonna be much better. For all of us.”

He still couldn’t quite believe it: the man in the suit on the army plane, the paperwork already drawn up. Special research project division, he’d said. No demons required.