Her father was not a weak man; he was a disciplined one, a man who had decided long ago that his temper was a thing to be governed rather than indulged.

But there is a point past which a good person’s restraint stops being strength and starts being the thing that lets cruel people keep winning, and watching her father stand there with his fists clenched and his mouth shut, swallowing an insult to his wife on their anniversary for the sake of not making a scene, Odalind saw that point with perfect clarity, maybe for the first time.

She had inherited his gentleness.

She had also inherited his silence.

And she was about to do the thing her gentle father could not quite bring himself to do, which was to stop swallowing.

Odalind, though, only smiled — small, calm, and entirely composed, which should have frightened everyone in the room more than it did.