The words hit Torval hard. He'd spent five years telling himself that Selene was safe, that the void between worlds was preferable to whatever fate the Winter Court had planned. But seeing Calypso's divine nature, witnessing Xavier's impossible power, forced him to confront the truth he'd been avoiding.
His daughter was suffering. Had been suffering for years. And he was the one who'd put her there.
"She won't remember me," he whispered, his voice breaking on the words. "Five years in that place... she'll be a stranger wearing my daughter's face."
"Maybe," Calypso said, her expression softening with something that might have been sympathy. "Or maybe she'll be exactly who she was meant to become. Children are resilient, Torval. Even displaced children."
