When the door closed behind the children, George exhaled. The fire in the grate crackled, tearing through the tension in the air. Years he had tried to outrun settled on his shoulders all at once, bending a spine that had once stood straight.

  “Well,” Victor spoke first, “now you can talk like a human being?”

  George did not turn.

  “Don’t stay silent,” Logan said sharply. “We all understood your manoeuvre with the children.”

  He walked past his brother and stood opposite his father.

  “Today you either tell us what’s happening, or…”

  Heather rose from the sofa.

  “Logan…” Her voice cracked. “Stop. Threats won’t help.”

  Logan did not react. His clenched jaw spoke for him.

  “If he doesn’t tell us now, it may be too late,” he said without turning.

  George remained silent. In the window’s reflection the dim light slowly dissolved his face, leaving only an outline. He heard every word, every breath behind him, and understood: the moment he had tried to delay had arrived.

  “Fine,” George said. “You want the truth. Then listen.”

  The old man stepped forward. Firelight lit his face.

  “You always thought your father was mad, and your mother simply left. But that’s not true.”

  Victor tensed.

  “What are you saying?”

  “She could not stay,” George continued. “The world you grew up in rests on thin edges. Eleanor was one of those who felt those edges.”

  “Magic…?” Heather barely dared say the word, but it slipped out.

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  George lowered his head.

  “Yes,” he said, raising his eyes. “What was in her was ancient magic, from before the worlds divided. Pure. Uncontrollable.”

  He turned to his sons.

  “After that split, power no longer awakened directly. It hid.”

  Victor frowned.

  “Then why…”

  “Because you became its boundary,” George said firmly. “Not bearers, not the awakened. You took the blow and held it.”

  Logan’s face twisted.

  “And the children?”

  “In them the worlds began to draw close again,” George answered. “What was restrained in you found no barrier in them.”

  Mary whispered:

  “So… Veronica and Andrew…”

  “Yes,” George nodded. “They inherited more than you can imagine. And the medallion is not just an ornament. It is a key.”

  “A key to what?” A sickly gleam flashed in Victor’s eyes.

  “To the power that was hidden there.”

  Mary laced her fingers, holding back a tremble.

  “You said ‘was’?” she asked, and immediately understood the answer.

  George’s words hung in the air, settling on each of them. Fear, anger and disbelief mixed into one heavy feeling. Logan and Victor asked no more. It was pointless. After everything that had happened, it became clear: Veronica and Andrew were no longer just children. The world they knew had cracked right here, and no one could say where the line now ran between past and present.

  Victor rose.

  “We have to bring them back!” he shouted.

  George closed his eyes.

  “I’m afraid it’s already too late,” he said.

  The fire in the grate flared and died. The room sank into half-darkness. From somewhere under the floor came a thin rattling. Near the chair leg, right on the carpet, a small shard of the medallion trembled, and for a moment a thin golden light flickered in its depths.

  “What is that…?” Heather whispered, barely audible.

  The shard began to spin. Dust rose from the shelves and froze in the air. Thin cracks ran across the floor, black frost spreading from them. It crept over the carpet and walls, covering them in fragile shine.

  Heather rushed to the door, but it would not budge.

  “George!” she cried. “What’s happening?!”

  The old man did not answer. His gaze was fixed on the floor where black ice slowly approached the shard. The light inside it trembled, trying to break free. A flash slid along the walls. The silhouette of a woman in a dark cloak. She stepped from the glow and touched the air with her palm. The frost obediently closed around the shard.

  The woman turned her head toward George for a moment. A wave of cold passed down his back. In the empty sockets flashed not a memory, but his own reflection. Something painfully familiar…

  The thought flickered and vanished, leaving only dull anxiety and a question he was afraid to ask even himself.

  The silhouette faded.

  Everything stilled.

  George slowly sank into the nearest chair. The movement was heavy, aged. in those few seconds he had lived another life. His fingers found the silver cross on his chest and gripped it so tightly the sharp edges bit into his palm.

  “So that’s the price,” he said into the emptiness.

  The only answer was the dry crack as a new frost pattern bloomed on the window glass.