Not a burden. Theo didn’t know if she truly believed that, but then he supposed she had never been to her husband; he had chosen her, after all, already knowing what he was and what had happened to his first wife. (He had not chosen his children, though. His children had been his responsibility, werewolf or not. Theo could point this out to her, but – she was already crying – he chose to swallow it.)

Maybe Veronica was relieved he was gone, and no longer a danger to them? Maybe Theo was too, somewhere deep down, and that was why the anger in his chest was physically hurting him now? No. No, he wasn’t relieved, he had not asked for this, his father had never asked him what he wanted –

His father had lied to them all for as long as he was able, as if lying was protecting them. And now Veronica wanted to make a plan for her children. “You’re going to lie to them,” he asked flatly, because that was what Nathaniel’s letters had implied she should, and she was more ready to heed the instructions than Theo was. At the back of his mind he knew there was no good alternative, that Natty and Selene were still much too young to comprehend this, or keep secrets. But the idea rankled him, all the same. “You’re going to let them think he’s dead?”

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