“Not everyone would.”
Something shifted in his expression, not anger, but something bruised and long carried.
“I’ve spent a long time feeling…” He broke off, breath catching. “Unanchored. I thought it was grief. But tonight—”
He stopped.
Lila waited. She did not press.
When he spoke again, his voice was raw.
“It wasn’t grief that kept me half alive. It was the absence of anything that mattered enough to pull me back.”
Her heart tightened.
“Marcus.”
He shook his head faintly. “I’m not saying this well.”
“You’re saying it honestly.”
He looked at her then, truly looked, and something in his eyes softened into recognition.
“Lila,” he said, her name a breath more than a word, “tonight I understood something I should have seen sooner.”
She swallowed. “What?”
“You are the reason I came back to myself.”
The words settled without force. Certain. Undramatic.
He was not speaking of the fight, or the rescue, or the narrow escape. He meant the mornings Henry woke him. The return of music to the halls. Laughter that sounded like life instead of duty. Warmth where the house had once been cold.
She lowered her gaze, overwhelmed.
His fingers brushed her knuckles, careful, reverent. He had not touched anyone this gently in years.
“You asked earlier whether Fenwick was wrong about you being a weakness,” he said.
She nodded.
“He was wrong,” Marcus said. “Entirely. You are my strength.”
Her breath slipped free. “I don’t know what happens next.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “But we face it together.”
Something bright steadied in her chest.
Henry stirred, murmuring in his sleep. Lila’s hand moved at once, soothing him with a gentle stroke.
Marcus watched her, this simple, instinctive tenderness, and something in him settled.
It was not desire. Not gratitude. Not fear. Belonging.
He rose quietly and offered his hand.
“Let me sit beside you,” he said. “You shouldn’t carry the night alone.”