Lenna pov
I find myself in a strange position these days—caught between loyalty to my twin and obligation to my family. Ever since that night when Amiriah revealed she had a child, the dynamics in the mansion have shifted irrevocably. The collective shock has given way to a swirl of emotions—curiosity, hurt, longing, and in Father's case, a growing indignation that borders on dangerous.
It stings that Amiriah doesn't trust me enough to share this most precious part of her life. We were a little close as kids.Now, she looks at me with the same wary distance she gives the others, as if I'm just another Spellman who betrayed her rather than her twin, her mirror, her other half.
But I understand her caution. I've spent months researching what happened at Greystone, piecing together fragments of reports and testimonies. I've seen enough to know that my twin endured horrors beyond imagination. If hiding her child from us is what helps her feel safe, how can I blame her?
Still, I watch Father carefully. His frustration grows daily, his patience—never his strong suit—wearing dangerously thin. I've taken to monitoring his movements, especially when he's near the east wing where Amiriah's room is located. This morning, I caught him lingering outside her door, his hand raised as if preparing to knock before thinking better of it.
"She needs space, Father," I said quietly, appearing at his side with a deliberateness that made him start.
He'd turned to me with that imperious look that once cowed us all as children. "How much space, Lenna? Weeks? Months? Years? She has my grandchild in there. A child I didn't even know existed until recently."
"A child she raised alone while believing we had all abandoned her," I reminded him, my voice gentle but firm. "A child she's protected from dangers we can barely comprehend. Trust has to be earned, Father. Even for you."
He'd walked away without responding, but the set of his shoulders told me this conversation was far from over.
I've warned the entire family against making rash moves. At dinner last night, I was explicit: "No surprise visits to her room. No attempts to 'accidentally' encounter the child. No demands. No ultimatums. Amiriah has been through enough without us adding to her trauma."
Even Kario, normally the most impulsive of us, nodded solemnly. "You're right. We need to let her set the pace."
The most frustrating part is the complete silence from Amiriah's room. Despite the mansion's thin walls and our family's various enhanced senses, no sound penetrates whatever barrier she's erected. It's as if that wing of the house exists in a separate dimension—which, given her Darkness powers, might not be far from the truth.
"Do you ever hear anything?" I asked Zuri and Zari this morning as we sat in their shared study. The twins' rooms are closest to Amiriah's, and their sensory abilities are the sharpest among us.
Zuri shook her head. "Nothing. Not voices, not footsteps, not even ambient noise. It's unnaturally quiet."
"We've tried extending our perception," Zari added, "but her darkness creates a dead zone our abilities can't penetrate."
"What about the poison energy you detected before?" I asked, recalling their earlier reports of strange readings from Amiriah's room.
The twins exchanged one of their silent communications before Zuri answered. "It's still there, but contained. Controlled in a way it wasn't initially."
"Do you think it's the child?" I wondered aloud. "Could Amiriah's child have inherited powers, perhaps something from whatever experiments they performed on her at Greystone?"
"It's possible," Zari said thoughtfully. "The energy signature doesn't match Amiriah's darkness exactly. It's related but distinct. More volatile in some ways, more focused in others."
"A child with poison abilities," I mused. "That would explain Amiriah's protectiveness. She'd be terrified of how we might react to a potentially dangerous power manifesting in a young child."
Zuri nodded. "Especially given how this family has historically responded to members whose abilities fell outside the 'acceptable' range."
The unspoken reference to Amiriah's own commitment hung heavy in the air. None of us needed the reminder that our family had a habit of removing problems rather than addressing them.
Later, I found Mother in the garden, tending to her midnight blooms—flowers that only opened under darkness, a fitting hobby for a family so entwined with shadows.
"How are you holding up?" I asked, settling beside her on the stone bench.
She didn't look up from the delicate black petals she was examining. "I dream about them, you know. My grandchild. I imagine a little girl with Amiriah's eyes and curls, or perhaps a boy with her determined expression." She sighed. "And then I wake up and remember that this child—this flesh of my flesh—doesn't know I exist. Or worse, knows me only as the grandmother who failed their mother."
"She'll come around," I said, though I wasn't entirely convinced myself. "She just needs time."
Mother finally met my gaze, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "Do you remember how she was as a little girl? So sensitive, so deeply feeling. She used to cry if she thought she'd disappointed anyone, especially Xavier or me. And then we sent her away, told her she was dangerous, believed she was dead..." Her voice broke. "What must she think of us?"
I had no comforting answer. The truth was, I knew exactly what Amiriah thought of us. Her outburst that night had made it painfully clear—we were the villains in her story, the family who had betrayed her when she needed us most.
"She's protecting her child from what she perceives as a threat," I said finally. "And given our family's history, can we really say she's wrong to be cautious?"
Mother's shoulders slumped. "No. No, I suppose we can't." She brushed soil from her hands, a determined expression replacing the melancholy. "But we can prove her fears unfounded moving forward. We can show her that we've changed, that we've learned from our mistakes."
"If she gives us the chance," I said.
"When," Mother corrected firmly. "When she gives us the chance."
I admired her optimism, even as I harbored my own doubts. The rune I'd glimpsed on Amiriah's side that night haunted me—a binding mark used in the darkest forms of shadow magic, one that would have caused excruciating pain during its application. What else had they done to my twin at that hospital? What other scars, physical and otherwise, was she hiding?
And most importantly, how had those experiences shaped her approach to motherhood? Was her child—this niece or nephew I had yet to meet—thriving despite the isolation, or suffering from it?
As I made my way back to my room that evening, I paused outside Amiriah's door, listening futilely for any sound that might penetrate her barriers. The silence remained absolute.
"I'm here when you're ready, Miri," I whispered, knowing she couldn't hear me but needing to say it nonetheless. "Both of you."
The darkness wolves that guarded her door watched me with their eerie luminous eyes, neither threatening nor welcoming—simply observant, like their creator. I wondered if they reported back to her, if she knew how often I lingered here, hoping for some sign, some crack in the wall she'd built between us.
One thing was certain—this stalemate couldn't continue indefinitely. Either Amiriah would eventually trust us enough to introduce her child, or Father's patience would break completely, forcing a confrontation none of us wanted. And if that happened, I feared we might lose them both for good.
I could only hope that somewhere in that silent room, my twin was considering a third option—a careful, tentative bridge back to the family that, despite our many failures, desperately wanted to love both her and her child.