She thought about how strange and long the reach of one clear-eyed woman’s love had turned out to be.

Georgiana had died before Finn was conceived.

She had never held him, never heard his name, never seen the wide uncomplicated smile he was giving the world right now.

And yet she was the reason he was safe.

She had looked at her own family with unflinching honesty, had understood precisely what they would do to a vulnerable woman and a fatherless-seeming child, and had built, out of nothing but foresight and a lawyer’s careful language, a shield that outlived her by years and caught her great-grandson before he ever knew he was falling.

That was a kind of immortality, Adele thought.