The air was different here.
Colder. Still carrying the faint perfume of a life sealed off and forgotten.
Aria's steps slowed as she turned away from the well-lit corridors of the family wing. She left the grand stairwell behind, moving past polished portraits and into the shadows at the far end of the second floor. Her bare feet whispered against the stone floors, her robe brushing lightly at her ankles.
Something tugged at her. Not logic. Not curiosity.
Memory.
Or maybe the absence of it.
The hallway stretched into darkness, only a few ancient sconces flickering against the high ceilings. The marble shifted color here—less pristine, more weathered, like the house itself forgot to keep up the illusion past a certain boundary.
Dust clung to the corners of the molding. The windows wore a thin skin of grime, blurring the moonlight that struggled to reach inside.
This part of the house didn't pretend to be alive.
It was honest, at least.
Aria moved slowly, letting instinct guide her. She passed closed door after closed door, the brass handles dulled with time. Each one identical. Impersonal.
Until one wasn't.
Halfway down the hall, a door caught her eye.
It wasn't grand. No carved patterns, no gilded edges. Just a simple oak panel, slightly rougher than the others.
Her breath hitched.
There was something small nailed to it—a tarnished nameplate, almost swallowed by the grain of the wood.
Aria stepped closer, heart hammering now for reasons she couldn't yet name.
She brushed her fingertips against the metal, wiping away a layer of dust.
The engraving was simple. Faded.
MARIE LAVOIX
Her mother's name.
Not Lavoix-Moreau. Not any married title. Just... her.
Aria's hand curled around the doorknob automatically, fingers trembling.
It didn't turn.
Locked.
Of course.
A locked room at the edge of a house that had never really let her in. A name they never spoke of unless forced. A woman they pretended had only existed in the margins.
She leaned her forehead against the door for a moment, eyes shut.
The wood was cold against her skin. Solid. Real.
"What did they hide from me?" she whispered.
The sound barely left her mouth, carried away by the breathing hush of the empty hall.
Her fingers tightened against the knob once, futilely, before she stepped back.
The bitterness rose up fast—thick and cloying.
It wasn't just about secrets.
It was about being erased.
All her life, she'd been a question mark they refused to answer. A mistake they kept in the shadows while they polished their children to perfection.
But Marie had lived.
And loved.
And left marks they hadn't scrubbed away carefully enough.
Aria's gaze drifted downward, catching the glint of something near the baseboard.
A thin sliver of light reflected off metal—something small, wedged just where the wood met the marble.
She crouched low, the floor biting against her knees through the fabric of her robe.
A key.
Tiny. Brass. Unassuming.
She reached for it, fingers brushing the dust aside.
When she lifted it into the moonlight, the thing looked almost too delicate to matter.
Almost.
She stood again slowly, staring at the locked door.
The key pressed into her palm like a question she hadn't yet decided to answer.
In the stillness of that abandoned hallway, time didn't feel linear anymore. It folded in on itself. Past and present bleeding together, stitched by the hand of a girl who was never supposed to survive in this house long enough to find this moment.
Aria turned the key over once between her fingers, the edges catching the faint light.
A whisper of a memory surfaced—her mother's voice, soft but firm.
"If you ever feel lost, listen. The house will tell you where to go."
It was nonsense. A bedtime story.
And yet—
Aria looked at the door again.
The handle.
The nameplate.
The life she wasn't meant to find.
She exhaled once, steady.
Then slid the key into the lock.
It didn't resist. No scrape. No jam.
The key turned with a soft, definitive click.
The sound seemed impossibly loud in the silence.
Aria's hand tightened on the doorknob—but she didn't push it open yet.
She hesitated.
Because she knew.
Whatever waited on the other side—letters, photographs, artifacts of a life denied—none of it would be gentle. None of it would erase the years they'd kept her apart from her own bloodline. None of it would make up for the nights she wondered why she felt more like a ghost in her father's world than a daughter.
But it would be hers.
And no one could take that back.
Slowly, she turned the knob.
The door creaked open.
Inside, the air was cooler, laced with the scent of cedar and old paper. Dust motes danced lazily in the shaft of moonlight that cut across the small space.
It wasn't a grand room.
No crystal chandeliers. No velvet drapes.
Just a simple four-poster bed. A wooden writing desk. A small shelf filled with worn books.
And on the desk—
A framed photograph.
Aria's chest tightened painfully.
She crossed the room on bare feet, the floor groaning quietly under her steps.
The photo was yellowed at the edges, the glass cracked slightly at one corner.
Her mother smiled out at her. Young, luminous. Not dressed in ballgowns or jewelry, but in a soft linen blouse, a daisy tucked behind one ear.
And in her arms—a baby.
Aria.
Much smaller. Dark curls a halo around her face, tiny fingers gripping the collar of her mother's shirt like she knew, even then, how easily the world could steal things away.
Aria's hand shook as she picked up the frame.
She pressed the frame lightly against her chest, holding it there—not desperate, not weeping—just... claiming it.
The wood was cool against her robe. Grounding.
Real.
She breathed in deeply, setting the moment into her bones.
The photo. The room. The life they tried to erase.
No letters tonight.
No digging deeper yet.
Some truths demanded more than impulse. They demanded timing. Patience.
She placed the frame back exactly where it had been, aligning it carefully so it looked untouched.
Her hand lingered for a second longer than necessary on the desk's surface.
I'll come back, she promised silently.
Not because she needed revenge.
Not because she needed validation.
But because she deserved to know who her mother really was.
And she wouldn't let anyone—not Isabelle, not Selene, not Juliet—strip that from her again.
Aria eased the door closed behind her, moving silently down the hall like a shadow folding back into the house.
By the time she reached her bedroom, no one would have known she'd ever been gone.
But in her chest, under the weight of silence and moonlight, a different kind of fire had started to burn.
The kind you didn't see coming.
The kind that didn't flicker.
The kind that consumed everything when it was ready.