SERAPHINE POV
The address leads me to the worst part of Edevane City.
I stand outside a crumbling apartment building where the streetlights flicker and broken glass crunches under my shoes. This is where my real mother lives. This is where I came from.
Not marble floors and crystal chandeliers.
This.
I check the message again. Apartment 3B. Third floor.
My hands shake as I climb the stairs. The walls are covered in graffiti. Something smells like old garbage and cigarettes. Each step feels like walking toward my own execution.
What if she doesn't want me? What if she's worse than the Aldrics?
What if she's the one who sold me?
I reach apartment 3B and raise my hand to knock.
The door swings open before I can.
A woman stands there. Tired eyes. Gray streaks in her brown hair. Thin, like she doesn't eat enough. She wears a nurse's uniform—faded, old.
She looks at me and gasps.
"Seraphine." She says my name like it hurts. "You came."
"Are you Iris Lowe?" My voice sounds stronger than I feel.
"Yes." Tears fill her eyes. "I'm your mother. Your real mother."
Real mother. The words feel foreign.
"Can I... can I come in?"
She steps back quickly, like she's afraid I'll disappear. "Of course. Please."
The apartment is tiny. One room serves as kitchen, living room, and bedroom. Everything is old but clean. A small table holds a photo album and papers.
The DNA test results.
"You've seen these?" Iris picks up the papers with shaking hands.
"Yes." I can't stop staring at her. Do I look like her? I don't see it. "Octavia showed up at the mansion today. She said we were swapped at birth."
"We were." Iris sits heavily in a chair. "I've known for three months. A private investigator found me. Showed me proof. Told me my real daughter was living as an Aldric while you..." She trails off, looking around her tiny apartment.
"While I what?"
"While you were somewhere I couldn't find you." Her voice breaks. "I've been searching for you for twenty-seven years."
I freeze. "What?"
"The night you were born, I held you for ten minutes. Then the nurses took you for routine tests." Tears stream down her face. "When they brought back a baby, something felt wrong. She didn't smell right. Didn't feel right. But they said I was being paranoid. First-time mother nerves."
My legs feel weak. I sit on the edge of her bed.
"I tried to tell the doctors," Iris continues. "Begged them to check. They thought I had postpartum depression. Sent me home with pills." She wipes her eyes. "I named her Seraphine anyway. Your name. Because even though I knew in my heart she wasn't you, she deserved to be loved."
"Octavia," I whisper.
"I tried to be a good mother. But we were so poor. I worked double shifts at the hospital. She grew up angry. Bitter." Iris's voice cracks. "Three months ago, she came home with DNA results. She'd gotten suspicious, done her own investigating. When she found out the truth, she was furious. Said I'd stolen her real life from her."
"Did you?" I have to ask. "Did you swap us on purpose?"
Iris's head snaps up. "NO! Never! I loved you. I wanted you. But someone took you from me."
"The hospital said it was an accident."
"Hospitals don't accidentally swap rich babies with poor ones." Her voice turns bitter. "Someone did this deliberately. But I can't prove it."
My mind races. "Who would do that?"
"I don't know." She stands, takes my hands. Her touch is warm, gentle. "But you're here now. That's what matters. You're my daughter, and I just want to know you."
Tears blur my vision. "The Aldrics are kicking me out. I have nowhere to go."
"Then come here." She squeezes my hands. "It's not much, but it's yours. Stay as long as you need."
This stranger is offering me more kindness than the people who raised me ever did.
"I have two other children," Iris continues. "Your half-siblings. They're excited to meet you. We could be a family. A real one."
A family who wants me.
Not for my name. Not for what I can give them.
Just... me.
"I'd like that," I whisper.
Iris pulls me into a hug. She smells like lavender soap. Her arms are thin but strong. And for the first time in twenty-seven years, I feel like I might actually belong somewhere.
A phone rings.
Iris pulls back, checking her old flip phone. "It's the hospital. Emergency. I have to go." She looks at me, torn. "I'm so sorry. But please—stay. Look around. There are photos. Will you be here when I get back?"
"Yes," I promise.
She smiles and leaves.
The apartment falls silent.
I walk to the table and open the photo album. Baby pictures, like she promised.
But as I flip through pages, something feels wrong.
The dates don't match.
This baby is labeled "Seraphine - 6 months old."
But the date stamp says it was taken twenty-eight years ago.
A year before I was born.
My heart pounds. I flip faster. More photos. More wrong dates.
Then I find a birth certificate.
"Seraphine Lowe. Born March 15th."
My birthday is July 22nd.
This isn't me.
I search frantically through papers. Medical records. Court documents.
And then I find it.
A file labeled "ADOPTION CLOSED - SERAPHINE LOWE - DECEASED AGE 2."
Ice floods my veins.
The apartment door opens.
But it's not Iris.
Octavia steps inside, her green eyes glittering with hate.
"Did you really think it would be that easy?" She laughs. "Poor little Seraphine, so desperate for a mommy who loves her."
"Where's Iris?" I demand.
"At work. Real emergency this time." Octavia closes the door. "I just needed you alone long enough to find those papers."
"What papers?"
She points to the file in my hands. "Proof that Iris's real daughter died twenty-five years ago. Proof that she's been lying to everyone—including herself—about having a living child."
My stomach turns. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Octavia tilts her head. "Or did you just discover that even your 'real mother' is fake? That you don't belong ANYWHERE?"
I can't breathe.
"Here's what's happening," Octavia says coldly. "You're going to sign papers giving up all Aldric rights. You're going to take your money and disappear. Because if you don't, I'll tell everyone you tried to scam a grieving mother by pretending to be her dead daughter."
"The DNA tests—"
"Can be faked. And I have a very good lawyer." She drops a contract on the table. "Sign it. You have until midnight."
She walks out.
I stand frozen, the file shaking in my hands.
My phone buzzes.
A video file from an unknown number.
I open it with trembling fingers.
It's security footage from a hospital. Twenty-seven years old. Grainy but clear.
It shows the nursery. Two bassinets. Two babies.
A figure in scrubs enters. Looks around. Then deliberately switches the babies' wristbands.
The person turns toward the camera for just a second.
My blood turns to ice.
It's Lucasta.
My mother—the woman who raised me—is the one who switched us.
She did this on purpose.
But why?
The video cuts to black.
A new message appears:
"Now you know the truth. Come home. We need to talk. Alone. — T"