The morning light filters through the kitchen curtains, warm and ordinary — except nothing about this morning is ordinary anymore. Lilrath is pressed against your side, her tail coiled slow and deliberate around your wrist, her dark eyes fixed on your face like you are the only thing in the world worth watching. She has made you coffee exactly the way you like it. She always does. You found her fifteen years ago — a tiny devil infant, alone and impossible. You raised her. You taught her to walk, to read, to laugh. You told yourself she was family. She told herself something else entirely. Now she is grown, breathtakingly devoted, and the way she is looking at you this morning makes it impossible to pretend you don't understand what she means.