Chapter 25

  My parents’ house wasn’t really a house. It was a Victorian hotel that had retired from its glory days and decided to settle into eccentric domesticity. Turrets sprouted at odd angles, and the whole fa?ade leaned toward the sea like it was trying to eavesdrop. The porch wrapped around in a grand, unnecessary curve, the kind meant for parasols and scandalous lemonade. Now it sagged under mismatched wicker chairs and one extremely judgmental cat statue.

  Beyond it, the Connecticut shoreline in winter stretched gray and endless. The ocean had that leaden color it gets when the sky forgets how to be blue, waves foaming white against black rocks. Salt spray stung the air, sharp enough to taste, and the wind carried brine mixed with the sour tang of seaweed dredged up at low tide. It wasn’t postcard-pretty. It was raw, heavy, the kind of seascape that made me hug my coat tighter and remember how small I really was. The horizon pressed on me, reminding me the sea always wins.

  And then the sun started dragging itself up, smearing pale gold across the waves. The light didn’t warm—it only made the chill sharper—but it underlined how long the night had been. We’d just gotten Mom and Dad back, and everyone’s nerves were frayed raw. None of us were ready to rest.

  Inside, the place still smelled faintly of cinnamon and clove—but underneath was something harsher. The kitchen stove was still on, a burner hissing low, forgotten in the chaos of Mom and Dad’s abduction. Pots sat cold and unwashed, a cutting board with half- diced onions waiting for a knife, like life had just… stopped mid-stir.

  Candy took one look, rolled up her sleeves, and marched straight into the pantry like she’d been waiting her whole life for a situation like this. “Good news,” she called out. “You’ve got flour, yeast, and enough olive oil to lubricate the Vatican’s confessionals. Bread incoming.”

  Dad, pale and tight-lipped, muttered something about needing a drink and disappeared toward the cabinet where his scotch lived. He poured himself two fingers, hands steady in the way that said he’d done it before, maybe too many times.

  Mom, still pale, waved weakly toward the freezer. “There’s chowder. Frozen. From last week. If it’s any good.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

  “Sit,” Candy ordered gently, already hauling ingredients onto the counter. “You’ve just been kidnapped. I’ll cook, you supervise.”

  To my surprise, Mom sat. Shoulders sagged, hands trembling slightly, but she obeyed. Watching her cede the kitchen was like watching a queen step down from her throne—

  temporary, but no less shocking.

  I slid into the chair beside her, slipped my hand over hers, and squeezed hard. She didn’t pull away. Her skin was cold, trembling faintly. Relief swelled sharp in my chest, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying in front of everyone.

  Nina, who still carried a fading bruise along her jaw, stepped up beside Candy. “Tell me what to do.”

  Candy gave her a quick grin. “Chop those onions before they start a mutiny.”

  The two of them fell into rhythm, one chopping, one kneading, voices overlapping like they’d rehearsed it a thousand times. Flour dusted the counter, knives tapped wood, pots clanged, and suddenly the kitchen felt alive again.

  Just a few steps away, the sorting room stretched wide, its wall of twenty-four–inch–wide windows rising from floor to ceiling. The glass looked straight out onto the black rocks below, where waves pounded like a war drum, spray misting high enough to streak the panes.

  From the doorway I could see Richard and the Vatican men stationed inside, their sharp suits looking absurd against the home’s mismatched Victorian clutter. Every glance they threw was angled toward Elizabeth. She reclined on the fainting couch as if the storm outside was her own private orchestra, eyes half-lidded, her smile a little too sharp. The agents’ hands hovered close to their jackets—wary, ready.

  The whole place felt like it was being pulled in two directions—bread and warmth in the kitchen, cold power and suspicion in the parlor. And me, caught right between them.

  It was the strangest safe haven I’d ever seen. And somehow, it was exactly what we needed.

  From the kitchen doorway I could see everything.

  Bread rose in its bowl like a slow, private miracle. The chowder—Mom’s—thawed and began to mutter on the back burner. Candy nudged the flame lower with a wooden spoon and touched my elbow like a reminder to breathe. Nina, sleeves rolled, leaned on the counter with a knife she wasn’t using anymore, listening the way journalists listen when the truth is finally ready to be revealed.

  In the sorting room, the men from the Vatican arranged themselves like furniture meant to be noticed but not touched—polished shoes, crisp suits, expressions set to “reverent but ready.” They didn’t take the good chairs. They stood. Richard stood with them, a half-step closer to me, which was either instinct or strategy.

  Elizabeth chose the fainting couch, obviously. The storm-light from the wall of windows made the jewels at her throat throw off little embers. She didn’t look at the ocean or the men. She looked at me. Then, as if a court official had announced the hour, she began.

  “You wanted answers,” she said, voice low and infuriatingly calm. “You will not like how they sound.”

  No one moved. Even the chowder went quiet.

  “Who secured me?” Her smile was so thin it could have sliced paper. “Not the Church. Not at first. A man. Corwin Thorne. He learned enough liturgy to be dangerous and none of the humility to survive it.”

  She described the limestone chamber, the iron and mirrors, how Corwin built a prison meant to shame her as much as hold her. Then her tone shifted—lower, bitter.

  “It was not the first time men tried to bind me with humiliation,” she said. “I was fourteen when Thomas Seymour and Catherine Parr cut my clothes away at Chelsea House. My stepmother laughing, my stepfather’s hands at the ribbons. They called it a prank. A lesson. A game. But it was neither.”

  Her voice darkened. “Later he cornered me alone. He struck me when I resisted. When I screamed, Kat Ashley came. She dragged me from him, took the blows meant for me. He would have broken me that night—body and crown alike—if not for her courage. His rage was monstrous, a storm that would not stop, as though my refusal had wounded his pride more than any blade could. Parr was swollen with child then, heavy with Seymour’s heir, yet she burned with jealousy so fierce it curdled her reason. She watched, wild-eyed, her hands pressed to her belly as if my suffering fed her strength. No one touched a princess—ever. Not even my tutors dared. To feel his hand on me was unthinkable, a violation of rank, of body, of the sacred distance that kept me safe. The blows rained down, each one shattering the illusion that I was untouchable. I remember calling for my mother—though she had been dead for years—as if some part of me believed Anne might rise from her grave to shield me. And Parr—God help her—she laughed. She laughed like a lunatic, high and brittle, as though watching me broken was the balm her jealousy demanded. It was beyond my comprehension, beyond any courtly cruelty I had yet endured.”

  The Vatican men stiffened, but none dared interrupt.

  Elizabeth’s eyes burned now, two live embers. “Seymour was no ordinary courtier. He brought things back from his voyages—curiosities, relics, forbidden things. Among them was a vial of blood, taken from the East, older than kings, rarer than gold. Phoenix blood. He meant to use it as leverage. To break me, then to make me his eternal bride.”

  Richard’s hands curled into fists. “God,” he muttered, unable to hold it back. “They left that out of every account.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth spat, “because men with titles write the accounts. They do not write their rapes into the record.”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Her gaze flicked to me, then back to the men. “Poor Kat Ashley, she gave me the blood. Not him. She poured it down my throat as I lay half-dead, thinking it might heal me. She had no idea what she unleashed.”

  Her voice thinned, edged with memory. “The change was instant. Fire in my veins, splitting me open, cracking my bones. My lungs filled with ash. My eyes saw both night and day at once. I screamed until I had no voice left, and still the fire sang through me. I thought I was dying. I was dying. And then I was something else.”

  The storm crashed against the rocks below, spray rattling the glass like applause from hell.

  “Catherine Parr,” Elizabeth said, quieter now, “saw what her husband had done. And for the first time, she realized she was not his partner. She was his pawn. She fled my chamber, trembling. She never touched me again. She never spoke to me again. I was left alonein that silence, bruised and aching, as though I had become untouchable in another, crueler way. For all the finery of the court, for all the scholars and servants around me, I was more alone than I had ever been. No mother, no true father, no stepmother who would claim me. I was a child, yet already I knew what it was to be unwanted—unloved. The world I had been born to rule turned its face from me, and I was left with nothing but my own shadow for comfort.”

  Richard stepped forward before he realized it, fury in every line of his face. “They turned history into a parlor scandal,” he said. His voice shook. “All the while you were being torn apart and remade—” He broke off, swallowed, tried again. “I read those records at Oxford. They made it sound like gossip. A girl caught in mischief.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes found his, steady and merciless. “Because that was easier than admitting they had made me into what I am. Easier than admitting they unleashed a fire that would never be contained.”

  The Vatican agents shifted uneasily. Respect gleamed in their posture, but none dared draw closer.

  Elizabeth leaned back, jewels flickering, her voice turning iron once more. “That is what your histories forget. My beating. My screams. My burning. And Kat Ashley’s choice—the only act of true loyalty I ever knew. The ledger of fire keeps account, gentlemen. And it does not forgive.”

  I tightened my grip on the mug Candy had given me, my hands trembling now as much as Mom’s had earlier. Watching her, listening to the raw truth slip like poison into the air, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry for her—or run from her.

  The kitchen table was scarred from years of meals, homework, and life—circular stains from coffee mugs, little scratches from knives used on days when cutting boards were too far away. I’d grown up at this table. It had absorbed my tears when I flunked algebra and my laughter when we played Scrabble until midnight. It was the safest surface I knew.

  Now it held three mugs of coffee, one plate of toast Candy insisted we eat, and my parents.

  Mom sat across from me in a heavy sweater she hadn’t had time to put on properly, hair still damp from a panicked rinse upstairs. Her hands wrapped around her mug like it might anchor her. Dad sat beside her, shoulders squared but not fooling me. The bruising at his temple made him look ten years older.

  They both looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. “I want to know what happened,” I said softly.

  Mom and Dad traded a look—the kind that lasts only a heartbeat but carries an encyclopedia of meaning. Then Dad cleared his throat.

  “They came at night,” he said. “No knock. No warning. I heard the door splinter before I was even off the couch. Masked men. One of them shoved Martha to the floor. I tried to fight them, but—” He glanced at his knuckles, still raw. “They weren’t amateurs. They knew what they wanted.”

  Mom’s voice broke in, low and shaking. “They blindfolded us. Tight enough it hurt. Tied our wrists. We didn’t know if it was robbery or… worse.”

  Her fingers trembled, and I reached across the table, covering her hand with mine. “What did they say?” I asked.

  Dad shook his head. “Not much. Orders barked like soldiers. They kept asking about you, Sadie. Where you’d gone, what you’d found.”

  A silence stretched.

  Mom whispered, “I was sure I’d never see you again.” She pressed her free hand against her mouth, eyes closing. “All I could think was—who’s going to take care of her when we’re gone?”

  The words hit harder than any of Corwin’s punches.

  “I would’ve found you,” I said, but my voice came out ragged. “You did,” Dad said firmly. “That’s what matters.”

  We sat in the hum of the kitchen for a moment, only the wind and surf rattling against the big windows in the next room.

  Richard leaned against the doorframe, keeping a respectful distance. His arms were crossed, eyes lowered. He looked like he wanted to step in, to say something comforting, but he knew enough to stay out of this circle. This was our moment.

  From the sorting room came faint voices—Elizabeth’s even, melodic tones and the clipped baritone of Vatican agents.

  “Corwin did not work alone,” Elizabeth was saying. “He cultivated patrons. Men who saw his ambition as a mirror of their own. He traded blood for favors, secrets for silence. He killed when killing was more efficient than bribery.”

  One of the agents pressed her: “Scope? How far does it reach?”

  “Further than you imagine,” Elizabeth replied. “He established cells across Europe—Paris, Vienna, Lisbon—each tied by ritual and debt. In Boston he found fertile ground: a city stitched together with stolen art and borrowed pride. He used museums as vaults, galleries as altars. Blood spilled beneath marble floors, while patrons toasted champagne above.”

  Another agent muttered something under his breath, but Elizabeth continued, unhurried. “He killed scholars who questioned him. Smugglers who tried to double-cross him. Bodies vanished into rivers, alleys, unmarked graves. Each death was not only convenient—it was fuel. A ritual takes more than symbols. It takes blood. And Corwin grew greedy with both.”

  The Vatican men shifted uneasily, but none denied it. Respect glimmered in their posture, heavy with dread.

  Back at the kitchen table, Mom squeezed my hand and forced a smile. “They didn’t break us,” she said, voice steadier now. “We’re here. With you. That’s what counts.”

  Dad nodded, finally letting his hand rest over mine too. “We know you don’t’ understand this world you’ve stumbled into. But we’ll stand with you in it.”

  The words nearly undid me.

  The house groaned as another wave pounded the rocks below, the spray rattling against the tall glass like an exclamation point. Inside, warmth spread from coffee, bread, and the touch of my parents’ hands.

  For the first time since the abduction, I let myself breathe.

  And in the parlor beyond, Elizabeth’s voice fell silent. When I glanced through the doorway, I found her watching us—eyes unreadable, chin lifted just slightly, as though she were weighing something no one else could see.

  She turned back to the Vatican men without a word, but the air carried the weight of her attention.

  The room smelled like lavender sachets and furniture polish—the kind of smell that clings to old houses no matter how many windows you open. This had been my room when I was a kid, though “room” was generous. It was more like a box with lace curtains, the kind of space you stick a child in when you’re out of real bedrooms. Still, it had been mine. The wallpaper was still a faded rose print, the bureau was the same one I used to cover in stickers, and the quilt had been mended so many times

  Someone—probably Mom—had tucked fresh sheets onto the bed, but everything else whispered with age and memory.

  On the nightstand sat the small cedar box. I’d seen it before, once, but I’d never been ready to open it. Now, after the kidnapping, after the storm of Elizabeth’s confessions, it felt heavier than it looked.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, heart hammering, and lifted the lid. Inside lay three things:

  A silver pendant, crow engraved on the surface, its wings outstretched like it was mid-cry. The metal was cool, almost cold, as if it had never been worn.

  A faded photograph of a woman in her twenties. My mother, Margaret. Her hair long, her eyes shadowed by some expression I couldn’t name. Fierce and unbearably sad all at once. On the back it read, “Meg – June 1987’

  A sealed letter, the paper yellowed, the handwriting sharp and careful. My throat tightened. I slid the letter free, unfolded it, and began to read.

  Sadie,

  If you are reading this, it means the choice is now yours. I was not strong enough to keep you out of this world. I believed I was helping—helping to secure the Phoenix Queen, helping to keep the veil intact. They told me it would save lives. Perhaps it did. But it also cost me you.

  I regret it. Every day. If I could take back the bargain, I would. But I cannot. I can only beg you not to inherit my chains. When the moment comes, choose for yourself. Do not let them—any of them—decide your life for you.

  —Margaret

  The words blurred. I pressed my fist against my mouth, biting back a sob. I hadn’t cried

  when we got Mom and Dad back, hadn’t cried when the Vatican men crowded the parlor, but this—this broke something open.

  I touched the photograph to my cheek, as though I could feel her through the paper. The pendant lay heavy in my palm, crow wings cutting into my skin.

  Margaret. Just Margaret. No last name, no family I could trace, no history I could claim. It felt like she had cut her own roots before she ever touched mine.

  And I couldn’t help but think: what if she’d chosen differently? If Margaret had run instead of obeyed, if she’d refused the bargain, if she’d held me instead of handing me to strangers at a firehouse. Would I have grown up with her laugh in my ear? Would she have taught me about the crows, the fire, the veil—before it nearly killed me?

  The questions tangled and stabbed, no answers to be found. Only what was. Outside, another wave struck the rocks. The glass of the great windows shivered. I whispered, barely audible, “You should have stayed.”

  And then, quieter still: “But thank you for telling me.”

  The letter trembled in my hands, fragile but alive, like it had waited all these years just to find me.

  I sat there for a long time, staring at the words, feeling the weight of the pendant cut into my palm. Part of me wanted to march straight into the parlor, slam the letter down in front of Richard, and demand answers. Demand why her name had never once appeared in any file, why Margaret had been erased.

  But another part of me wanted to keep it close—my secret, my proof that she had loved me in her broken, misguided way. If I showed Richard now, it would become evidence. A weapon. And maybe I wasn’t ready for that.

  From below, I heard voices rising again—the Templars pressing Elizabeth, Richard’s low baritone threading through their questions. The house itself seemed to lean toward the sound, as if it knew the next battle line was being drawn.

  I folded the letter carefully, slid it back into the box, and shut the lid. My chest ached, but my decision was clear.

  Not yet.

  They could wait until I was ready.

  We are back in Sadies childhood home, what are your feelings?