"I'm leaving."
The words hang in the air of our makeshift bedroom like a stone through glass. I stare at Vlad, unable to process what he's just said. It's been two months since we started rebuilding Blackwood, two months of working side by side, and now—
"What do you mean, leaving?" My voice sounds hollow even to me.
He won't meet my eyes, staring instead at the architectural plans spread across his desk. "The insurance investigators are getting close to connecting the Blackwood trust to the Architect program. If I'm here when they arrive, everything we're building gets seized as evidence."
"So we fight them—"
"With what, Jasmine? We're barely keeping the lights on. We can't afford a legal battle that could drag on for years." He finally looks at me, and the pain in his eyes makes my chest ache. "If I disappear, become a fugitive, they'll focus on finding me instead of shutting down the school."
"That's bullshit and you know it." I'm angry now, the emotion safer than the devastation lurking beneath. "You're running because it's easier than staying."
"Easier?" He laughs, bitter and broken. "You think abandoning you and our children is easier? You think leaving everything we're building is what I want?"
"Then don't go!"
"I have to!" The words explode from him. "I'm Theodore Dickenson's son. That name is poison now. Every day I stay here, I put a target on this school."
Hope starts crying in her crib—she always knows when we're fighting. The sound breaks something in me, and suddenly I'm crying too.
"We just found each other," I whisper. "After everything—the lies, the manipulations, the discoveries—we finally found each other. And now you want to leave?"
He crosses to me, pulling me against him. "Want has nothing to do with it."
"Devon needs you. Hope needs you. I need you."
"You're stronger than you know. You always have been."
I pull back, anger flaring again. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare make this about my strength. This is about you choosing to leave instead of fighting to stay."
"What would you have me do? Wait for them to arrest me? Let the children watch their evolved friends' father dragged away in handcuffs?"
"Yes! If that's what it takes, yes! We face it together, like we promised."
"That promise was before I realized how much damage my name could do."
A knock interrupts us. Devon enters without waiting for permission, and one look at his face tells me he's heard everything.
"You're both being stupid," he announces with the blunt honesty only a seven-year-old can manage.
"Devon—" Vlad starts.
"No. You're planning to leave because you think it'll protect us. And Mom's trying to make you stay because she's scared of losing you again. But you're both missing the point."
"Which is?" I ask, wiping my tears.
"The evolved children don't care about your name, Dad. They care that you're here, helping build something new. And Mom, letting him go isn't giving up—sometimes loving someone means letting them do what they think is right, even when it hurts."
When did my son become so wise?
Genesis appears in the doorway, Richard behind her. "We have a situation. The Seminary children are here, but there's a problem."
We follow them outside to find three buses, but the children emerging aren't what I expected. They're glowing, yes, but their light is wrong—flickering, unstable.
"What's wrong with them?" I ask Adrian, who's helping a young boy who can barely walk.
"Carmichael's suppressor technology. He's been broadcasting it on certain frequencies. These children were in Prague when it started. Their evolution is being forcibly reversed."
"That's not possible," Richard says, already examining the boy.
"It shouldn't be. But he's found a way to make their cells reject the transformation. If we can't stop it..."
"They'll die," Devon finishes, his face pale.
I look at the forty-three children—our new students—suffering because one man can't accept that evolution chose a different path than his vision.
"Can you help them?" I ask Devon.
"I don't know. The suppression frequency is strong, and they've been exposed for weeks."
"Try," Vlad says. "Please."
Devon nods and walks among the sick children, his glow brightening. One by one, the other evolved children at Blackwood join him, forming a circle around the newcomers. Their combined light pulses, and I hear that strange mathematical music Devon hums.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then one child—a girl maybe nine years old—stops flickering. Her glow steadies, brightens. Then another. And another.
But not all of them. Seven children don't respond, their light continuing to fade.
"It's not enough," Devon gasps, swaying on his feet. "The suppression is too deep."
"What do they need?" I demand.
"The original frequency. The pure one from the Order of Memory. But stronger than what I can generate alone."
I think of the documents in the ruins, Evangeline's research, the Order's pure technology. "Julia! The modulator from the caves—do we still have it?"
She nods, already running to retrieve it. When she returns, Devon takes the device with shaking hands.
"If I amplify it through the network, it might work. But—"
"But what?"
"It might affect everyone. Every evolved child connected to the network will feel it. If I get it wrong..."
"You won't," Vlad says with absolute certainty. "You're our son. You can do this."
Devon looks at me, seeking permission to risk everything we've built. I think of seven children dying, their evolution reversed by a madman's technology.
"Do it."
He activates the modulator, and the sound that emerges makes reality ripple. Every evolved child on the grounds screams in unison—not in pain but in something like rebirth. Their light explodes outward, brilliant and terrible.
When it fades, all forty-three Seminary children are glowing steadily. Saved.
But Devon collapses.
"Devon!" I'm at his side instantly, Vlad right beside me. Our son is unconscious but breathing, his glow dim but present.
"He overextended," Richard says, checking his vitals. "Channeling that much energy through his body—he needs rest."
As Vlad carries Devon inside, I stay to help settle the Seminary children. They look at me with such hope, such trust, and I feel the weight of what we're building.
Later, after Devon is stable and the new children are housed, I find Vlad packing a single bag.
"You're still leaving."
"The investigators will be here tomorrow. Adrian confirmed it."
"And if I asked you to stay? If I begged?"
He cups my face in his hands. "Then I'd stay. And everything we've built would burn."
I want to be selfish. Want to demand he choose us over the greater good. But I think of Devon's sacrifice today, risking everything to save seven children he'd never met.
"How long?"
"I don't know. Months, maybe years. Until we can clear the Dickenson name or build the school strong enough to survive the scandal."
"Where will you go?"
"Better you don't know."
I laugh, bitter. "Back to secrets?"
"No. To protection. Marcus and Leo are going with me. We're going to hunt Carmichael's operations, destroy his suppressor technology."
"A noble exile."
"A necessary one."
That night, we don't sleep. We memorize each other—every touch, every whisper, every promise that this isn't forever. Hope floats between us, and Devon, recovered enough to join us, curls against my side.
"You'll come back," Devon tells his father with the certainty of prophecy. "When the spring comes, you'll come back."
"How do you know?"
"Because that's when Hope will need you most."
I don't understand, but Devon's predictions have never been wrong.
At dawn, Vlad kisses me goodbye with a desperation that breaks my heart. He kisses our children, whispers something to Devon I don't hear, and then he's gone. Leo and Marcus with him, three shadows disappearing into the morning mist.
I stand in the doorway of Blackwood Academy, our daughter in my arms, our son at my side, and watch the man I love leave to protect what we've built.
"It's not forever," Devon says.
"No," I agree, though the word tastes like ash. "Not forever."
Behind us, forty-three new students wake to their first day at a school that shouldn't exist, built on love that transcends separation, and hope that glows in the darkness.