Valerica Steele Dad |best| Page

Her throat tightened. “So why now?”

Her father’s handwriting.

“I know.”

She closed her fingers around the vial.

Valerica looked at the vial, then at her father—the man who had taught her to spot a hoax from a hundred paces, who had spun stories like spider silk, who had vanished without a single scream. valerica steele dad

Her father, who had walked into the sea on her tenth birthday. Valerica had spent a decade convincing herself she was fine. She’d built her reputation on skepticism because belief had cost her too much. Her father, Elias Steele, had been the real deal—a folklorist who could walk into any town and leave with three new legends and a scar. He’d believed in everything: kelpies, shadow men, the soft whisper of the huldra in the birch woods. Her throat tightened