Rhett was offering, in his grief and his shock, to become a trapdoor in that floor, and he did not even know that was what he was offering, because he had never in his life had to think past the wanting of a thing to the keeping of it.

My only job, the one I had done alone for ten years and would go on doing, was to protect the floor.

He was crying now, openly, and I did not enjoy it, and I did not stay for it.

“They know who you are,” I said, more gently than he deserved.

“I’ve never lied to them about that.

When they’re grown, if they want to find you, that will be their choice to make, and I won’t stand in the way of it.

But it will be theirs.