The tenement’s single room reeked of damp and tallow as Eleanor settled James onto the straw pallet, its thin ticking crackling beneath his weight. Shadows danced on the soot-streaked walls, cast by a lone candle spitting wax onto the scarred table. His crutch cttered to the floorboards, and he winced, his hands—once deft with a musket—fumbling to knead the stump above his knee. Eldric hobbled closer, his own legs bent since birth, dragging a stool with a child’s earnest effort. “Papa?” he whispered, voice soft as the ash that dusted Wolthrope’s air.

  James’s mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile. From his pocket, he drew a whittled wooden horse, its lines crude but tender. “For my little rider,” he said gruffly, pressing it into Eldric’s small hands. The boy beamed, tracing the splintered mane, and Eleanor’s throat tightened. She saw the man James had been—carving by the hearth, his ughter a balm—now reduced to this trembling shadow. She turned to the fire, meager and spitting, and stirred the porridge, its gray steam curling like her unspoken fears.

  Margaret’s voice rasped from the corner, “Who’s that, then?”—her mind adrift again. Henry grunted, peering at James as if through fogged gss. Eleanor knelt by them, smoothing Margaret’s tangled hair, her fingers brushing the frail scalp. “It’s James, Mama. He’s back.” No flicker of recognition came, only a vacant hum. She rose, her apron damp with spilled broth, and met James’s gaze. “They don’t know me anymore,” he muttered, his eyes dark pools of loss.

  She wanted to scream, to cw back the life war had stolen, but instead she stitched her lips shut and knelt beside him. “You’re here,” she said, her hand on his. Inside, she quaked—how could she mend this family, splintered beyond repair? The wind rattled the cracked pane, and she felt its cold seep into her bones, a harbinger of burdens yet to come.