Chapter Text
Julian used to think he could hear the ocean better at night.
Not the loud, theatrical roar it gave in the old stories, but the undertow sounds—the drag of grit against wood, the soft fizz of bubbles dying at the surface. The sort of sounds you only hear when the wind calms down and everyone else has gone to bed. Tonight it was loud in all the wrong ways. The Blackthorn house was too quiet, the ocean too close, and the air felt like it had teeth.
He sat on the back step with his hands pressed between his knees, trying to keep them still. The wooden boards were damp from sea spray and afternoon fog. Everything in District 4 was always a little damp. Even grief.
Inside, the kids were laughing with Emma over the dessert she’d brought—if you could call a single sea urchin dessert. But their eyes had gone big and round and they’d devoured it like she’d brought a feast worthy of a Capitol broadcast. Dru had insisted she didn’t like urchin, then immediately tried it when Emma teased her. Tavvy got the last sliver. He’d closed his eyes like it was magic.
Maybe it was, in a story Julian would never let himself tell.
Emma washed her hands in the bucket by the door, flicking droplets toward Dru and making her shriek. Tavvy tried to catch the falling water in his mouth. Livvy, always the conspirator, pretended to scold Emma while giggling. Even Ty—quiet, careful Ty—watched with something close to wonder. He trusted Emma more easily than he trusted almost anyone.
Julian’s chest warmed in painful, complicated ways at the sight.
He loved them all. Fiercely. But Emma—Emma lived inside his ribs like a truth he wasn’t supposed to touch.
She caught his gaze as she stepped away from the bucket, wiping her wet hands on her too-thin trousers. A wavy lock escaped her braid and plastered itself to her cheek. She blew it away with an irritated puff.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, coming over. “Like I’ve committed some culinary sin.”
“You did,” Julian said. “You fed Dru sea urchin and destroyed any chance of her liking humble food ever again.”
Dru stuck her tongue out at him. “I still like bread.”
“You like bread because Emma taught you how to toast it on the wood burner,” Julian said.
“Which means I clearly have excellent judgment,” Emma replied. She nudged him with her shoulder. “You okay?”
Julian’s breath caught. She asked so easily, without hesitation, as if he were someone allowed to be fragile.
He nodded.
It was mostly a lie.
The Reaping was tomorrow.
Not their first. Not their second. But somehow it felt different this year, heavier, like the air was trying to warn him without using words. There were two more before they aged out, but the Capitol never cared about odds. It cared about spectacle. About breaking things. About reminding people like him that their lives were playthings.
He swallowed.
Inside, Dru yawned dramatically. Livvy began herding them toward the bedroom like a mother cat pushing kittens. Ty lingered, his book clutched to his chest, but he followed when Livvy tapped her foot in the special rhythm they used to communicate annoyance. Tavvy was already drooping, rubbing his eyes with a fist.
“Go brush,” Livvy called. “Actual brushing. None of yesterday’s nonsense.”
“Yesterday’s nonsense worked fine,” Dru protested, but her voice was already fading around the corner.
Julian watched them until their silhouettes vanished. Then he finally exhaled.
Emma dropped down on the step beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. Close enough that he felt the heat of her.
“You’re doing the face,” she said.
“Which face,” he lied.
“The one that means you’re thinking about something you won’t say.”
He stayed quiet. Which was, unfortunately, an answer.
Emma pulled her knees up and rested her arms on them. Her profile was sharp in the twilight, the lines of her body all honed—from work, not training. She was prettier than she knew, but it wasn’t softness that made her beautiful. It was the fierce aliveness in her, the refusal to bow her head even when life shoved her face into the dirt.
She was everything dangerous in District 4 wrapped into one person.
He wished he could breathe without feeling her there.
“It’s our penultimate one,” she murmured. “Almost done.”
Julian’s stomach twisted.
“For us,” he said.
She tilted her head, studying him.
“Dru,” he added. “It’s her second. Tavvy’s still years away. I don’t stop worrying until… until they’re grown.”
Emma’s expression shifted. Something gentler. Deep as a tide pool.
“You know they could volunteer for Career training if they wanted,” she said. “Kids who train rarely get reaped.”
“Ty hates crowds,” Julian said. “Career academies practically inhale crowds.”
“Livvy might like it.”
“Livvy only likes things she can beat other people at.”
Emma laughed under her breath. “That’s… actually fair.”
Julian picked at a splinter on the step. He didn’t tell her he’d already worked out every variation of their future, every permutation of risk and probability. He didn’t tell her about the tesserae he took out in his own name, year after year, even though Helen and Mark’s money helped keep them fed. It was never enough. Not for five mouths. Not with winters that cut deeper every year. He didn’t want the kids to carry even a whisper of that weight. Seven ballots a year ever since he turned 12. Forty-seven times his name would be swimming in a glass bowl tomorrow.
Emma leaned her head back and looked up at the sky. Stars peeked through the marine haze. The night smelled like kelp and brine and worn wood—the whole district exhaled that scent after dark. In the distance, the Victor’s Village sat on its lonely rise, windows glowing faintly. Julian could almost pick out which house belonged to which victor: the quiet one where Jace lived, lights always low as if he were trying not to be seen; Clary’s place next to it, where flashes of light sometimes pulsed through the windows, likely because more people lived there; and farther beyond, the two older victors, the ones who rarely appeared outside and never mentored anymore, so forgotten by the district that their silhouettes were practically part of the landscape.
Emma breathed in deeply. “You ever think about what you’d do if…” She hesitated. “If you were reaped?”
His heart skidded dangerously, a hard jolt that felt like it knocked something loose in him.
“I think about it,” he said carefully, because careful was the only safe way to approach that kind of thought.
“What then?”
He glanced at her. Her profile was sharp against the fading light. “What do you think I’d do?”
She huffed a soft laugh. “Something noble and stupid.”
He didn’t deny it. He didn’t need to. They both knew exactly what he’d do.
She nudged him again, lightly, her shoulder brushing his. “You’re a good big brother.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” she said, cutting him off without heat. “Julian, you’ve raised them almost by yourself. Don’t—don’t pretend that’s not true.”
He looked away. Compliments always landed wrong—less like kindness and more like tiny injuries, sharp little reminders of the gap between what he managed and what he failed at. Every praise carried the echo of what wasn’t here. Who wasn’t here.
Mark should’ve been the one doing all of this. Mark had been sixteen when their father drowned, old enough to work the docks full-time when he wasn't in school, but too young to be anyone’s parent. He’d carried the family on his back in the only way he could—long days, longer nights, always exhausted, barely home except to sleep. And when he finally aged out of school, he’d gone straight to the fishing boats, because someone had to bring in money or they’d all sink.
And Helen—Helen had already been eighteen, already working a different route than their father. Oldest in name, but absent by necessity. She sent home her wages and letters smelling of salt and diesel fuel, but letters couldn’t braid Dru’s hair or sort out Ty’s obsessions or hold Tavvy when he cried. Letters couldn’t fill the place of a mother who died before Tavvy could hold any memory of her.
Julian knew why Mark and Helen stayed away so long. They weren’t choosing distance; they were choosing survival. Every paycheck they sent home kept food on the table, bought medicine when Dru got sick, kept the roof patched and dry. Without them, the rest of the Blackthorns never would’ve made it.
He missed them. He missed them so much it sometimes knocked the breath out of him. Missed Mark’s rough laugh and Helen’s calm steadiness. Missed being the younger brother instead of the one everyone looked to.
But the resentment was there too, small and sour, tucked somewhere under his ribs. Not at them, not really. At the world that had pushed them all into roles they didn’t get to choose. At the fact that being the steady one, the caretaker, the makeshift father—none of it had been optional for him. And compliments like Emma’s only pressed onto that bruise.
“They’re the ones keeping us afloat,” he said quietly, though not quite meeting her eyes. “Mark and Helen—they’re the reason we get through every year. I just… fill the spaces they can’t reach.”
The truth was harsher, and he didn’t say it: that he kept trying to hold together a family split across distance and grief, and every day he was terrified he was failing all of them.
Emma didn’t counter him. She just let her shoulder stay against his, warm and steady, like she saw all of it even when he didn’t say a word. The gesture almost undid him.
She sighed, softer this time, like the sound of a tide pulling back. “You’d win, you know.”
Julian blinked, taken off guard.
“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”
“You would,” she said. “Because you’d find a way. You always do.”
She meant it. He could hear it in her voice, the absolute conviction, and that frightened him more than anything. He didn’t want to be someone who could survive that arena. He didn’t want the Capitol to look at him and see something they could sharpen into a spectacle.
“Emma,” he said quietly. “You’re the one who would win.”
She made a dismissive noise. “Please.”
“I’m serious.” He turned toward her fully now. “You know how to hunt underwater better than anyone in the district. You can hold your breath for almost three minutes. You run like you’re half-made of lightning. The other Careers would be stupid not to fear you.”
She stared at him. Her hair, still damp from the docks, clung to her cheekbones. She looked a little wild. She always did.
“Thanks,” she said, though her voice was quiet, weighed down by something older than her years. “But I don’t want to be a victor.”
He didn’t want her to be one either. In District 4, “victor” wasn’t a title; it was a haunting. You saw it in Jace’s flat stare, in the way Clary’s smile never quite reached her eyes anymore. The Capitol loved victors—but only the way it loved knives and cages, with a hunger that stripped shine from anything it touched.
He could imagine Emma as a survivor, fierce and unbroken, but he couldn’t imagine her as a thing the Capitol possessed. That felt wrong in his bones, like imagining the ocean chained.
Inside, the house creaked as the kids settled.
Emma lowered her voice, the way one does instinctively in the last peaceful hour of the evening.
“You’re scared,” she said.
“I’m always scared,” he replied. “That’s how I keep them alive.”
“Julian.”
He closed his eyes.
She touched his wrist—not hesitant, but careful. Her fingertips were cool from washing dishes. He felt the contact like a shock.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said.
He didn’t know if she meant the Reaping, or life, or something softer and far more dangerous.
He opened his eyes.
She was looking at him as though she wanted to memorize his face.
He swallowed. His throat felt scraped raw.
“Promise me something,” he said.
Emma raised a brow. “All right.”
“If—” His voice cracked. He had to steady it. “If I ever get reaped, and you don’t—”
“Julian—”
“Let me finish,” he said. “If I get reaped, you take care of them. All of them. You make sure they’re fed. That they stay in school. That Dru doesn’t climb up on the roof again because she thought she saw a mermaid—”
“That was one time.”
“Promise.”
Emma stared at him like he was the one losing his mind.
“Of course I would,” she said. “You don’t have to—”
“Promise me,” he repeated, and he hated the way his voice sounded—urgent, cracked open. “Please.”
Something in her expression softened. Melted.
She put her hand over his, palm warm, fingers curling. “I promise. But you don’t need me to. You’re going to survive. You always do.”
He wanted to tell her he didn’t want to survive without her. The words rose like a wave.
He swallowed them back.
She squeezed his hand once, firmly, then let go before either of them could register how intimate the moment had been.
“I’m sleeping here tonight,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”
“You always do,” he said quietly.
Emma smiled. A small, careful smile. The kind that hinted at sadness in its corners.
They went inside.
The house was dim, lit only by one oil lamp. Julian moved to the bedroom to check on the kids, the nightly ritual so familiar it felt like muscle memory—Dru was sprawled sideways across the blankets, one arm dangling, her hair covering half her face. Livvy slept curled tightly, her fingers tucked under her cheek. Ty lay under his covers with a lamp cupped against his ribs, the soft glow giving him away. Tavvy was already deep in his dreams, clutching the stuffed fish Julian had stitched together from scraps of cloth and old netting.
When Julian turned back, Emma was leaning in the doorway to the tiny bedroom. She wasn’t standing straight—she was resting her shoulder against the frame, like her body finally admitted how tired she was. Even in the dimness he could see the heaviness around her eyes.
“You’re sleeping,” he said. “I’ll take the floor.”
She frowned. “Jules, I’ve fallen asleep on tide pools with barnacles digging into my back. I think I can survive sharing a mattress.”
“That’s not—”
“Julian,” she said. “Come on.”
He obeyed. He always obeyed her, even in the smallest things. She never seemed to notice how easily he gave in.
The bed was small enough that they couldn’t avoid touching. Their legs brushed as they settled. Their shoulders pressed together along a warm line. Their breaths fell into the same pace without meaning to. Julian held himself rigid, as if any softening would betray him. He was afraid that if he relaxed even a little, every truth he’d buried would spill out of him—how long he’d loved her, how deeply, how hopelessly.
The window overlooked the sea. The tide was high, the waves loud enough to fill the silence between them.
“You should sleep,” Emma murmured.
“I’m trying.”
“You’re thinking.”
“I’m always thinking.”
She shifted, turning onto her side to face him. He felt the movement—the mattress dipping, the warmth of her chest angled toward his, the subtle brush of her knee against his leg. Her gaze lingered on him, even in the dark. He could feel it, steady and curious.
“Two more reapings,” she whispered. “Then you’re free.”
He shook his head. “Not free. Not until they’re all past it.”
“You deserve freedom.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to.
She reached out beneath the blankets, her hand searching until her fingers touched his. Just a touch—skin against skin, the lightest contact. It was enough to send a sharp jolt through him. He kept his hand still only because moving it would have given everything away.
“Get some rest,” she murmured. “For me.”
The words hit him squarely, simple and devastating. She had no idea what they did to him. She never did.
He inhaled slowly and tried to unclench his body, inch by inch. Beside him, Emma’s breathing softened as she got comfortable. Her knee brushed his again, this time lingering, and his pulse jumped helplessly.
After a long moment, she spoke again, quieter:
“You’d make a great father.”
His heart stuttered so hard it hurt.
“That’s not— I mean— I’m just—” The words tangled in his mouth. He sounded young, unsteady, nothing like the version of himself she believed in.
She laughed into the darkness, soft and warm. Not mocking—more like she’d expected his panic.
“I meant it,” she said. “The kids adore you. You’re… good.”
Julian’s throat tightened. He wanted to turn toward her and look directly into her face. He wanted to tell her she was wrong about almost everything except that. He wanted to tell her she was the reason he kept going, the reason he stayed whole. He wanted to tell her he loved her in a way that had woven itself into every part of him. But she lay there so close, trusting him completely, and he couldn’t risk losing that.
Instead he said:
“Emma?”
“Yeah?”
The words hovered on the edge of his tongue—sharp, real, unstoppable.
“Sleep,” he said instead.
“Coward,” she whispered fondly.
It didn’t sting. It settled into him like a truth he already knew. She didn’t mean the kind of coward he feared he was; she meant the kind he couldn’t explain to her.
Outside, the ocean whispered against the shore, steady and relentless. Emma shifted in her sleep, moving closer without waking. Her hand slid against his again—maybe accidental, maybe not—and her fingertips rested just beside his.
Julian lay awake a long time, watching the faint outline of her hair across the pillow. He memorized the pattern of her breathing, the warmth where her body brushed his, the quiet weight of sharing a bed with the girl he loved more than anything he was allowed to want.
He stayed that way until the tide began to turn, silently, desperately hoping that tomorrow would be kind.
He knew it wouldn’t be.
He tried to pretend it might anyway.