It never would again.

She has our future.

And so, at last, and forever, do we.

There is one more thing I want to say, because it is the truth I most want my daughter to grow up knowing, and it is the answer to the woman who came to that hospital room in white gloves.

Wendy Vance believed that Fiona was hers by right of blood, that the mark behind her ear was a claim, a brand, a destiny.

And there was a moment, when Fiona was born, when even I felt the cold fear of it, the sense that the darkness had reached into our new life and stamped its ownership on our child before she had drawn her tenth breath.