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I swallowed and nodded again.

“That hurt.” She wasn’t crying. “Not that you left—Christ, I’d have driven you away from that idiot myself. But you cut us off too, Wren.”

Sparrow squirmed against me. I settled her higher on my shoulder. Austen was right, and I couldn’t bear to look away from her.

“I missed you,” I said. “All of you. But you were still at the clubhouse with Seb. If I answered, sooner or later I’d hear his name, and I couldn’t bear that then. But I should have let you know I was safe.”

Austen took a breath in through her nose and let it go. “Yeah,” she said. “That would have been nice.”

She crossed the gravel with Wilder in one arm and wrapped the other around Sparrow and me. I hugged her back. “Don’t you ever—” she said into my shoulder, and didn’t finish it.

She pulled back, looked at my face and said, “You look amazing, you cow. What have you been eating?”

I laughed through the tears. Austen took Sparrow’s hand and inspected her tiny fingers, giving me a moment to wipe my face.

Robin carried bags inside, pushed the coffee table aside and spread a blanket on the front-room floor for the babies. I followed Austen in with Sparrow still against my chest.

I laid Sparrow beside Rohan, Curtis and Wilder. Four babies born within weeks of each other. Rohan rolled toward her and got an arm across her belly. She objected loudly. Indira scooped his arm away while I lifted Sparrow onto my lap, and the two of us started laughing.

Poppy sat on the blanket beside Curtis and Wilder, steady on her own and reaching for every toy. Maya sat at the edge and began handing out rattles. Poppy grabbed a second one before Maya got to Wilder.

“One each,” Maya told her.

“She’s a baby, sweetheart,” Lilac said.

“Then I have to teach her.” Maya held out her hand for the rattle.

Seeing them together, I thought again of what we’d missed on both sides-choosing names and passing the newborns around the clubhouse kitchen. I loved the life I’d made for her here but I wanted her to grow up knowing this family too.

Bea came over while I fed Sparrow and sat beside me on the sofa. Curtis was asleep against her shoulder again. It seemed that boy loved his sleep.

“Were you all right when she was born?” she asked.

“I was. Robin was with me.” I looked down at her son. “Were you?”

“Yes. Holden nearly wore a hole in the hospital floor.” She smiled at the memory. I could picture him pacing. When Sparrow was born, I’d wanted to call Bea and the others. But news like that would have reached Seb, and I was still afraid he’d use what he could do for Venom to take her from me. So I’d held my daughter and told none of them.

When Sparrow finished feeding, Austen came over. She looked at my daughter, then at me. “Can I hold her?”

I settled Sparrow in her arms. Austen held her close and studied her face. “She’s got his eyes, then,” she said quietly.

“She does.”

“And his hair.” Then she looked up. “But she’s got your chin.”

“Has she?”

“Wren, she’s got your whole face. He’s in there but that’s you.” She jiggled her slightly. “I wish you’d let me meet her sooner.”

I looked over at Wilder on the blanket. “I wish I’d met him sooner too.”

Austen eased Sparrow back against her chest. “Well, we’re all here now.”

I watched Austen with my daughter. After Seb, she would have been the first person I told I was pregnant. We should have gone through it together, been calling each other in the middle of the night when Sparrow and Wilder wouldn’t sleep. Instead she was meeting Sparrow at four months old. I was glad she was here, but I ached for all the days we’d missed.

Moff, Dion, Nick and Simon came over that afternoon. By then all four babies were back on the blanket. Moff stopped in the front-room doorway and looked around. Indira and Lilac were talking over one another, Robin was making another pot of coffee, and Maya was explaining the rattle rules to Bea.

For a year, Moff and the others had been my only family here. Now he was watching the people I’d left in Millfield fill Robin’s house.