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There were footsteps on the roof behind her. Henrietta, arms wrapped around her knees, looked over her shoulder expecting to see her father, and wishing he would leave her be. But it wasn't her father.
It was Caleb.
She looked back out at the ocean, hastily wiping at her eyes. He sat down beside her.
For a moment they sat in silence, watching the dying sun sink into the salt sea.
"A boy his age is not worth your tears," Caleb said.
Henrietta didn't look at him. "You know?"
"Ezekiel told me."
She scoffed, tears dampening the sound. "Snitch."
Caleb looked at her with the same intense gaze he used all those years ago when he'd found her traveling in the hills with Eli. Like he was trying to read her soul. Like he was reading her soul. "You really think we would not notice? The table was far too quiet."
She could hear a smile in his voice, and she assumed she was supposed to laugh at that. She didn't.
"It wouldn't have worked out, anyway," She said, wiping her nose. "I'm being silly."
Caleb said nothing.
"His being from Dumarre and all...going back and forth. It's too far away, really."
Still, nothing.
Henrietta's voice broke. "I really liked him." She pulled her knees tighter to her chest, burying her face in her arms, letting the tears shake her shoulders. She glanced up at her uncle. "Why aren't you saying anything?"
"Sometimes," he said, slowly. "Silence is better than speaking."
She sniffed, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Why did you come up here?"
"Henry said you wouldn't want your father to come."
She shook her head. "He'd say something stupid about how I'm beautiful, because he's my dad and he has too." She paused. "That still doesn't answer why you did."
"I didn't want you to be alone."
She bit her lip and fresh tears burned in her eyes. She swallowed hard, blinking them back.
"Henrietta," he began. She couldn't read his expression. She rarely could. "You are a force to be reckoned with. Your cousin might carry the brand of the dandelion in his hand, green and gold fire in his veins, but you are a tornado. A blaze. You do not need the blood of a pauper son in you for that to be true. I saw it the moment I met you, all those years ago. You have a fighting spirit."
Her next question tumbled around in her brain, clanking against her skull. It sounded so stupid. So weak, and boy crazy, and dumb. She hated feeling dumb. She hated feeling week. And she really didn't want to be thought of as boy crazy.
"What if...what if boys don't like that? What if I'm too wild for all of them?"
Caleb laughed, throwing his head back. His eyes glittered with mirth. "You must not have studied many marriages, Henrietta Willis."
She blushed. Aunt Hyacinth was calm. Her mother was calm, at least more so than her father. She wouldn't describe either of them as wild or a tornado.
"You did not know them when they were young," Caleb said. She jumped. How did he do that? "Do not forget that your mother faced Nimiane, too. And your aunt has had her share of adventures."
Henrietta swallowed hard. "What if..." she trailed off, trying to figure out what exactly she was afraid of. "What if I'm too different. I'm not from here. Maybe I just don't belong, and I need to go back to Kansas to find someone who'll put up with me."
"Your mother is not from here. Neither is your Aunt Hyacinth. Or my wife."
She pursed her lips. It was different. Why couldn't he see that? Her mother had married her father in Kansas. He was the one out of place then. And Aunt Hyacinth, well...she'd met Mordecai and Caleb when they were very young. And Aunt Tilly was Zeke's mom. Maybe they weren't from this world, but they all made sense here.
"You are from here, Henrietta. Your blood is from here. You are from the marriage of Hylfing and Henry, Kansas. A mix of seas of salt and seas of wheat. Are you not content in that? To be a bond between worlds?"
"I'm scared," she said in a quiet voice. She raised her eyes to her uncle, tears turning them emerald.
He nodded. "Most young people are."
She hadn't looked away, her tear-filled eyes big and pleading. She looked younger, suddenly, than her 16 years. Small. Innocent. Breakable. For the first time that evening anger sparked in Caleb's veins. He quenched it before it could show. It would not do.
He laid a strong hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. "You are the granddaughter of Amram Iothric and Lady Anastasia. You are the daughter of Francis Willis, one-time-of-Kansas, lost to Hylfing and returned. And of Dorothy Willis, who faced the witch queen Nimiane when she was a girl in Henry, Kansas. You have traversed the haunted halls of Fitzfaeren and the tombs of Endor and emerged alive. You have long stood beside your cousin, Henry York Maccabee, loyal to a fault in the adventures that led to the ultimate defeat of the witch-queen and the reunion of a family, long torn asunder. You did not shrink yourself to be palatable then. Do not do so now."
Henrietta's jaw was slack. She stared at her uncle, dumbfounded. Caleb stood. Blinking back tears, she shook herself, and found her voice. "Thank you."
He smiled and left her on the roof. A few minutes later, Henry and Zeke joined her. They sat on either side, tucking her between them. She rested her head on Henry's shoulder. He didn't shrug her off.