And I’m not handing it to you now.”

I turned, and I walked back up the long, bright, sunlit driveway toward my home.

Mason came sprinting across the green lawn and threw his arms around my waist, laughing, and Flynn jogged up behind him with a soccer ball under his arm and a grin on his face, and I caught my son up and held him, warm and safe and heavy and real, in the sunlight.

I thought, standing there, of two doors on one freezing night — the one that locked, and the one that opened — and of the old guard’s vow, and of everything a locked door can cost, and everything an open one can save.

Paige had taught me what a closed door does.

Mr.