Damian, Gwen, and Mila were the fourth group to arrive. Mila had tugged Gwen along by the wrist without letting go, her blonde hair scattered by the sea breeze, yet her eyes were exceptionally clear beneath Damian's night light.
The flashlights and torches along the commercial street lit up half the sky. Damian walked at the front, while Mila pulled Gwen along half a step behind him. The footsteps of the three rang in unison over the stone pavement, stretching toward the commercial street.
Thirty steps before the flower archway, Damian stopped.
He saw the man: silver hair, gold-rimmed glasses, an ebony cane, standing before Barlow and Roy, with the adviser respectfully bent at his side.
The way he spoke was exactly like Gwen three months ago at the docks, raising her bandaged hand to wave at him—the composure rooted deep in one's bones, cultivated only by someone who had seen far too many grand occasions.
Gwen stopped behind Damian. She saw the back of the man in a dark gray suit beneath the burning torches, and her fingers instinctively tightened around Mila's hand until her knuckles turned white.
Then the godfather turned around.
He saw Gwen, across the half-paved gravel road of the commercial street, across the crushed flower petals and toppled flower stands, across the firelight and the four watchful eyes of Barlow and Roy.
He saw his daughter, the daughter he had not seen for three months, dressed in an altered dark-blue cotton dress, her blonde hair blown loose by the sea breeze, her hand tightly held by a cold-faced girl.
His expression changed into something more complicated.
He slightly raised his chin. The lenses of his glasses reflected the flickering torchlight, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
To outsiders, that expression looked like anger.