Elara

“Please give this to Mr. Vane.”

I pressed the necklace into the guard’s gloved hand. My voice came out flat, emptied of everything.

“Tell him the compass is broken. It doesn’t point home anymore.”

I paused. Drew breath. Forced out the rest.

“Tell him he got what he wanted. He has no daughter now. And I’ll never bother him again.”

The guard looked uncomfortable—the first crack in his professional facade. “Miss Vance, maybe you should—”

“Just give it to him.”

A side door opened. A maid in black and white uniform emerged to collect the necklace. Middle-aged, her face pinched with the perpetual disapproval of someone who’d spent too long serving the wealthy.

Her eyes fell on the bundle in my arms. “What is that thing?”

“It’s…” My throat closed. “It’s Lily.”

Her face twisted in disgust. “What garbage! You can’t bring that in here!”

Before I could react, she kicked at the coat-wrapped bundle, trying to shove me away from the property line. The worn fabric came loose.

The plastic urn tumbled into the snow.

The cracked lid popped open.

Ash scattered across the white ground—gray powder stark against pristine snow, mixing with ice and dirt. My daughter. My baby. Reduced to dust and spilling across the driveway of the house that destroyed us both.

I dropped to my knees.

My fingers—bare, frozen, bleeding where the skin had cracked—scraped at the snow. Trying to gather her back. Trying to separate Lily from the ice and mud. But it was impossible. The wind caught some of the powder, carried it away into the blizzard.

Gone. Scattered. Lost.

“I’m sorry.” I was sobbing now, past caring who saw. “I’m sorry, Lily. Mama couldn’t protect you. Mama couldn’t even—”

My voice broke.

From inside Blackwood Estate, piano music swelled. Pachelbel’s Canon, played with concert hall perfection. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see the reception. Crystal chandeliers. Ice sculptures. Champagne.

Julian had his arm around Sloane’s waist, turning her in a slow dance. A small boy in a miniature tuxedo—their son, three years old—was being passed around by cooing relatives.

“The Vane heir!” someone declared. “Look at him! The spitting image!”

A legitimate child. A wanted child. A child whose existence would never be denied, whose death would never be ignored, whose ashes would rest in a proper grave with flowers and dignity.

I looked up at the second floor. Third window from the right.

My room. Or what had been my room for seven years.

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