🧩 Chapter 9
The library was too quiet.
Evelyn's voice still lingered in the air like a trick candle — impossible to blow out.
Seraphina took a step forward, her heels barely making a sound on the mahogany floor. "You died," she whispered. "I saw your body. I… mourned you."
Evelyn smiled behind her mask, soft but not kind. "You mourned a performance. I gave the world a body and it gave me freedom."
Seraphina's breath hitched. "You faked your death?"
"Yes." Evelyn's tone carried no shame. "And I did it to save the family. To save you."
Seraphina felt the air leave her lungs. "You let me believe I was alone."
"I couldn't protect you if they knew I was still alive."
"They?" Seraphina repeated bitterly. "Who are they?"
Evelyn's expression shifted — from mysterious to something darker. "The Atrium. The real Atrium. The ones who framed your father, who bought our silence with blood."
Seraphina's knees threatened to give. "Why now?"
"Because they know you're not just surviving anymore. You're rebuilding. And that makes you a threat."
A long silence.
Then Seraphina whispered, "Why didn't you trust me?"
Evelyn stepped closer. "Because I needed you angry. I needed you to want the truth more than you wanted comfort."
Seraphina stared at the woman who used to tuck her in at night and teach her Latin at the breakfast table. The same woman who had taught her how to read faces—and lie with her own.
She didn't know whether to hug her or hit her.
🔥 Ivy's Ultimatum
Back in a candlelit corridor beneath the ballroom, Ivy faced the silver-masked man again. The one who claimed to know her brother, Mason.
He held out a folded piece of parchment.
"This is a ledger," he said. "Proof that Darven Holdings forged the documents that took down the Langley family."
Ivy narrowed her eyes. "Why give this to me?"
"Because you're the last person they'd suspect. You can walk into places Seraphina can't. People trust artists. They assume you're harmless."
She didn't take the paper. "And what's in it for you?"
He tilted his head. "Deliver it to Seraphina before midnight. Or give it to us, and walk away with clean hands and a fresh name for your brother."
Ivy's heart twisted. "You're using him."
He shrugged. "Everyone's a pawn until they learn how to play."
She stared at the paper. Her fingers itched to take it. Her brain screamed not to.
But her heart?
Her heart thought of Seraphina's trembling hands… and her brother's missing face.
🕷️ Lucien's Secret
Lucien stood before a locked door in the east wing.
Grangehall's east wing was cursed. People whispered about it. Staff refused to clean it. Guests pretended it didn't exist.
He punched in an old six-digit code on the keypad. The door clicked open.
Inside was a room frozen in time — military-grade monitors, old files, newspaper clippings. Photos of Seraphina's family. Of Lucien himself. Of others… now dead.
A single photograph rested in a cracked frame on the far table. Two boys. Younger. One dark-haired, unreadable. The other blond, smiling.
The blond was Elliot Vale — Lucien's best friend.Dead at sixteen.Killed in Grangehall.By accident, they said.
But Lucien remembered the blood.The screaming.And the silence that followed.
He picked up a faded journal from the shelf.
"PROJECT HERALD: Children of Silence."
The name of the program that turned him into something inhuman. The program the Atrium buried after the scandal.
His phone buzzed again.A new message.
"Seraphina is walking into a war you already lost once. Will you lose her too?"
Lucien crushed the phone in his hand until the screen shattered.
🥀 Midnight Approaches
Seraphina stared at Evelyn.
"You're part of them," she said. "You played both sides."
"I had to," Evelyn replied. "You don't fight the Atrium from the outside. You infect it from within."
"And what am I supposed to be?" Seraphina asked.
"The match," Evelyn said, her voice trembling for the first time. "And maybe… the fire that burns them all down."
Outside, the clock began to strike midnight.
Ivy held the ledger in trembling hands.
Lucien walked out of the east wing with eyes darker than before.
And somewhere in the ballroom, the masked guests began removing their disguises…
One by one.
📜 End of Chapter 9