She returned to her quarters with the sealed letter in her hand and too many thoughts pressing behind her eyes.

  The palace felt colder now. Not in temperature — but in tone. Every corridor echoed too much. Every corner held a whisper. The notary’s voice still rang in her ears, calm and precise, as if he hadn’t just signed away her life in half a dozen clauses and a stamped page.

  She opened the bedroom door, already reaching for the ties at her collar, just wanting to breathe—

  And stopped.

  Someone was inside.

  A girl — no older than twenty — stood frozen beside the window. She held a feather duster in one hand and a wide-eyed cat in the other. Rudy, unmistakably offended, squirmed in her arms.

  When the maid saw Fran, she immediately straightened.

  “Your Grace—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

  She nearly dropped the cat.

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  Fran blinked. She wasn’t angry. Not truly. But the sheer tension of the day had narrowed her tolerance to something thin and dangerous.

  “You’re not in trouble,” she said.

  The girl looked like she’d just been told her execution was delayed.

  Fran exhaled.

  “You were cleaning?”

  The maid nodded. Fast.

  “Yes, Your Grace. And feeding the cats. They were very... vocal.”

  Fran looked at the pair. Rudy had leapt to the bed and was glaring, as usual. Nymph watched from the windowsill, tail flicking.

  “What’s your name?”

  The girl hesitated. Then:

  “Silja.”

  A quiet voice. Honest. No pretense.

  Fran nodded once.

  “Thank you, Silja. That’s all for now.”

  The maid curtsied — not elegantly, but earnestly — and hurried out the door.

  Fran didn’t move until the door clicked shut behind her.

  Then she exhaled. Sat on the edge of the bed. And stared at the envelope in her hand.

  It was heavy. Cream-colored. The wax still unbroken.

  She turned it over once. Twice. Then again.

  Her name was written in a neat, angular script.

  She tried to imagine the man who had written it. The uncle she had never met. The man who had taken her life, crumpled it like a page, and rewritten it with a title she never asked for.

  You waited all this time, she thought. You could have come. You didn’t. And now you want me to read your final words?

  No.

  Not tonight.

  She set the letter on the table beside her bed.

  She didn’t open it.

  Didn’t even touch it again.

  But it stayed there — waiting — like a weight, like a question, like a truth she wasn’t ready to name.