The house at the cliff groaned like something alive. Salt-crusted windows rattled in their frames, wind howling through gaps in the warped wood while the sea’s cold spray misted the glass. Kaelen stood at the kitchen threshold, one hand braced against the doorframe, watching the gray-green water churn against the rocks below. He'd been standing there for ten minutes. Maybe twenty. Time moved differently in places like this—places that felt like the edge of the world.
The vision came again. Not the full thing—just a flicker, like a candle guttering in a draft. A version of himself, older, standing alone on a shore that could have been this one. No one beside him. No hand reaching for his. The future he kept seeing, the one that waited like a patient wolf at the edge of every decision he made.
He pressed his thumb into the scar on his palm—the one from the lighthouse glass, still pink and tender when he pushed too hard. The pain anchored him. Brought him back to this room, this moment, the smell of salt and old wood and something cooking that Lucien had probably burned.
A sound from behind him—wood creaking under a familiar weight. Robin's footsteps, deliberate even when he tried to be quiet. Kaelen didn't turn. Couldn't. His thumb kept pressing into the scar, and if he moved, the vision might find him again, patient wolf still waiting at the edge.
"You've been standing there for an hour." Robin's voice landed somewhere between observation and accusation. "I counted."
"An hour?" Kaelen's throat felt raw. He hadn't spoken since the vision took him. "Feels like less."
"Feels like less," Robin repeated, and the flatness in his voice said everything he wasn't saying. Kaelen knew that tone. It meant *I'm worried and I'm trying not to show it and failing*. Robin had worn that voice like armor since the lighthouse. Since carrying him through the Gate. Since every nightmare that pulled Kaelen under while Robin held him through the thrashing.
"Burned something?" Kaelen asked, finally letting his hand drop. The scar throbbed once, a fading echo.
"Lucien burned something. I'm not letting him near a stove again."
"You said that yesterday."
"And yesterday I meant it." Robin moved closer, stopping just shy of touching. Close enough that Kaelen could feel the warmth coming off him. "Today I was distracted."
Kaelen turned his head, just enough to catch Robin's face in his periphery. Dark brown hair even more unruly than usual, wind-tangled from checking the perimeter. Brown eyes watching him the way they always watched him now—like Kaelen might shatter if Robin looked away too long. "Distracted by what?"
"You know what."
The words sat between them. Heavy. Too heavy for a kitchen at the edge of the world, with salt crust on the windows and something acrid drifting from wherever Lucien had failed at cooking.
"Same vision," Kaelen said, because Robin deserved that much. Because Robin had earned the truth a hundred times over. "The shore. Alone. Same future."
Robin's jaw tightened. That muscle in his temple that only flickered when he was holding something back. "You saw it again. Here." Not a question.
"It's getting stronger." Kaelen's voice dropped. "I used to only see it when I was half-asleep. Fever-dreams. Now I can be standing in a kitchen, watching the sea, and it just—" He stopped. His hand found the scar again, a nervous habit he couldn't shake. "It just takes me."
Robin's hand moved. Slow enough that Kaelen could have pulled away. Robin's fingers closed around Kaelen's wrist, gentle, prying his thumb away from the scar with a care that made Kaelen's chest ache. "Stop," Robin said quietly. "You'll make it worse."
"It's already healed."
"That's not what I meant."
Robin held his wrist for a moment longer, thumb brushing over Kaelen's pulse point. The touch was light, barely there, but Kaelen felt it everywhere. The warmth traveled up his arm, settled somewhere behind his ribs, made it harder to remember why he always pulled away first.
"I know you think I can't feel it," Robin said, still not letting go. "Coming back here, standing at this window, watching you disappear into something I can't follow." His voice cracked, just a little, at the end. "But I feel it. Every time."
Kaelen finally turned. Fully. Faced Robin in the gray light filtering through salt-crusted glass. Robin's big brown eyes were wet at the edges, and he was blinking fast, and Kaelen wanted to say something that would fix this. He didn't have the words. He never had the words.
"I'm not going anywhere," Kaelen said. It came out rougher than he meant.
"You don't get to promise that." Robin's hand was still on his wrist. "Every time you have a vision, you flinch away from me first. Like you're already practicing being alone."
The accusation landed because it was true.
Kaelen opened his mouth—to deflect, to apologize, to say something that would make Robin stop looking at him like that—when a crash from the other room shattered the moment.
"I'M FINE," Lucien's voice called out, muffled and defensive. "EVERYTHING IS FINE. NO ONE COME IN HERE."
A beat of silence.
Then Bramble's low rumble, the sound of stones shifting in a river: "The pot is on the floor."
"THE POT IS FINE."
"The pot is on the floor, Lucien."
"Bramble, I swear to every god you don't believe in—"
Robin's grip on Kaelen's wrist loosened. A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I should go save what's left of dinner."
"Or we let them figure it out."
"And starve?"
"Lucien's pride can only survive so many kitchen disasters." Kaelen felt the tension in his shoulders ease, just slightly. "Let him have this one."
Robin's smile widened, but it didn't reach his eyes. Still watching. Still measuring. Still trying to find the version of Kaelen that wasn't slipping away. "Stay here?" Robin asked. Soft. Hopeful. "I'll bring you something edible. No promises on taste."
Kaelen nodded. "I'll stay."
Robin held his gaze for one more breath, then turned and walked toward the chaos. Kaelen watched him go—the way Robin moved through the narrow hallway, shoulders set, hands flexing at his sides, already bracing for whatever Lucien had done.
The house groaned. The sea churned below. And Kaelen pressed his palm flat against the cold glass, feeling the salt mist cling to his skin.
The future was still waiting.
But right now, in this room, Robin's warmth lingered on his wrist. Right now, someone was arguing about a pot. Right now, Bramble's heavy footsteps crossed the floor, followed by a concerned whine that vibrated through the walls.
Kaelen pressed his forehead against the glass. Closed his eyes.
He could feel the vision at the edges of his mind, patient and hungry. But he held it back with the memory of Robin's hand on his skin, the crack in his voice, the way he'd said *stay here* like it was a plea and a prayer at the same time.
"I'm still here," Kaelen whispered to the empty room. To himself. To the version of him standing alone on a shore that no longer existed.
The wind answered him. The sea answered him. But somewhere in the kitchen, Robin laughed—genuine and surprised—and the sound cut through the gray like light through a crack in the clouds.
Kaelen opened his eyes.
The future could wait.
He pushed off from the window and followed the sound.