The walls whispered with memory.
As Noah followed Victoria Sterling down the hushed corridors of the estate, every step he took was like walking deeper into someone else's dream. The long hallway was lined with portraits — not just of Jonathan and Victoria, but of generations of Sterlings going back to the Civil War. Stoic men in military uniforms. Women in velvet and pearls. Children with haunted eyes. And at the end of the hall, a final portrait: a young boy in a navy blazer with a red bowtie, standing beside a golden retriever.
It was him.
The brushstrokes were soft, gentle — painted from memory. Probably after the disappearance. His throat tightened.
"This was your wing," Victoria said quietly.
The phrase didn't make sense to him. Your wing? The house was so large it had wings?
She pushed open a door. The hinges creaked like a sigh of regret. Noah stepped inside.
The room looked like it had been frozen in time. Posters of dinosaurs and spaceships still hung on the walls. A bookshelf overflowing with picture books and early readers. A toy chest by the window, half-open. And on the bed, a neatly folded blanket with cartoon trains.
Victoria hovered in the doorway, her voice distant. "I had the staff dust it once a week. But no one touched anything else."
He ran his fingers across a model airplane. It was still intact. A thin film of time coated everything.
"Why did you keep it like this?" he asked, softly.
"Because hope doesn't remodel," she replied, and walked away before he could say anything else.
He stood there, alone, in the childhood he never got to finish.
And for the first time since the black car showed up in front of Clara's farmhouse, Noah felt it. The tear in his life. The silence where years should have been. The room smelled faintly of cedar and lavender, and beneath it all, something sharper — memory, maybe. Or grief.
He sat on the bed and stared at the floor.
He didn't remember this room. Not really. But there were flashes. The shape of the window. A music box on the shelf that played a lullaby he'd heard in dreams. The curve of the armchair near the fire.
And then, out of nowhere, a word came into his head:
Shadow.
He didn't know why, but it filled his chest with cold. He blinked and shook it off.
—
That night, Noah couldn't sleep.
He wandered the estate like a ghost. The place was too quiet, the silence so deep it echoed in his bones. Chandeliers glinted dimly above him. His footsteps were muffled on thick Persian rugs. Every door seemed to hide something.
Eventually, he ended up in the library.
It was massive — two stories tall, with ladders that slid along the shelves and a fireplace large enough to walk into. Hundreds of books, from dusty leather-bound volumes to modern thrillers. It smelled like ink and ash and secrets.
He wasn't alone.
By the fire sat a man with a blanket over his lap and oxygen tubes tucked under his nose. His eyes were closed, but his hand clutched a book. The oxygen machine let out a steady hiss.
It was Jonathan Sterling.
Noah's father.
He didn't know what to do. Part of him wanted to walk away, to preserve the silence. But something drew him closer.
"You can sit," the man rasped, without opening his eyes.
Noah slowly lowered himself into the chair across from him.
"You look like her," Jonathan said.
"Who?"
"My mother," he said. "You have her eyes. Not Victoria's. Not mine. That skipped a generation."
Noah didn't respond.
Jonathan finally looked at him. His face was worn like river rock — powerful, weathered, carved by decades. There was no warmth in his expression, only curiosity. And something else — guilt?
"You remember anything?" Jonathan asked.
"Flashes," Noah admitted. "A woman screaming. Glass breaking. A song."
"Figures," Jonathan muttered. "They did a good job burying you."
Noah narrowed his eyes. "They?"
Jonathan leaned forward slightly. "There are forces in this world, son, who don't need a reason to destroy a family. Especially a powerful one. You were taken to break me. And it worked."
"Then why didn't you find me?" Noah asked, bitterness rising.
Jonathan looked into the fire. "Because the moment you were gone, they made me believe you were dead. You were five. No ransom. No note. Just blood and silence."
Silence thickened between them.
"But someone kept you alive," Jonathan added. "And someone kept you hidden. That's what you need to understand, Nathaniel — and why you can't trust anyone."
Noah flinched at the name.
"I go by Noah now," he said quietly.
Jonathan's mouth twitched. "Fine. Noah, then. But that won't stop the wolves from circling."
He looked suddenly tired. Fragile. The myth of the man falling away to reveal something terribly human beneath.
"There's more," Jonathan whispered. "Much more. But it can't come from me. I'm running out of time. And you… you're going to have to decide what kind of man you want to be."
He gestured toward a shelf behind him. "Top shelf, left side. Red spine. Take it."
Noah stood, walked over, and pulled out the book. It was a journal. Thick. Leather-bound.
Jonathan exhaled. "Read it. When you're ready."
—
What Noah didn't see — couldn't see — was the figure watching from the hidden hallway behind the bookcase.
A woman in black. No expression. Eyes sharp as frost.
She spoke softly into a mic on her lapel.
"The heir has taken the journal. Initiate Phase Two."