Chapter 247

Jacob's Perspective Two years. Not a lifetime, but not a fleeting moment either. Long enough for the mountain snows to melt and gather twice. Long enough for the moss on the lodge roof to creep a little greener, deeper. Long enough for a girl to truly come into her own. Celena had changed. God, she had changed. Not in some dramatic, outward way, but from the inside out. The girl who’d always carried a shadow of trepidation, a slight frown as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders, had been slowly reshaped by time and… maybe a little by me, too. She was livelier. Not in Lily’s roof-raising way, but with a quieter, more grounded vitality. When I returned from patrol, she wouldn’t just be waiting quietly by the door. She might leap out from behind the lodge, smelling of sun and grass, holding up a handful of freshly-picked, dew-covered wild berries, her eyes crinkling. “Guess what I found?” She’d laugh in the kitchen with Lily and Nate, the sound clear an