Elara's POV The coffee was still hot when I sat down. That almost never happened. I wrapped both hands around the mug and looked at the morning through the kitchen window. The California sky was doing that thing it did in June, pale at the edges, gold collecting slowly in the middle, like the sun was taking its time deciding. Sydney mornings were louder and more insistent. This felt considered. I had forty minutes before Ivy arrived. And here I was using twenty minutes to do nothing. My phone lit up at half past eight. Noah's name on the screen. I picked up before the second ring. "You're up early," I said. "Couldn't sleep." His voice sounded restless. Four years old and already carrying the kind of quiet that made people underestimate him. "Emily kept the light on." "I did not." Emily's voice in the background, indignant. "You did." "That was Claire's side—" "It was my side—" "Both of you," I said. Silence. Then Noah, reluctantly, "She had the light on
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