My mother’s locket lay in Marianne’s gloved palm, its tarnished silver catching the hospital light.
“Then who sent this?” I asked.
Adrian’s eyes shifted to the locket.
“Clara,” he said. “It has to be Clara.”
Marianne unfolded the note again. “Why say ‘first child’ now?”
“Because Victor is using the same weakness my father used,” Adrian answered, his voice low. “Inheritance. Blood. A child treated like a key to a vault.”
My hand moved instinctively over Julian.
He shifted beneath my palm, a small living answer.
Dr. Walsh stepped closer. “Elena, your blood pressure is rising.”
“I’m fine.”
“No,” she said gently. “You are brave. That is not the same thing.”
The words should have annoyed me. Instead, they reached some exhausted part of me that had been pretending bones, fear, and heartbreak were minor inconveniences.
Adrian finally sat.
“Elena,” he said, “there may be more. If Clara sent the locket, she wants us to follow something she has protected for a long time.”
