Chapter 1
The bedroom floor felt harder than the courtyard had looked.
I lay on my side with both hands pressed against my stomach, though my palms were slick and burning. Someone had dragged a blanket beneath my knees. The fabric smelled faintly of cedar and dust. My breath came in short pieces, each one catching before it reached my ribs.
Daniel crouched beside me.
“Emily.”
I watched his hand approach my shoulder. It stopped when I flinched.
For a second, the only sound was the curtain rope knocking against the broken balcony frame. The heavy fabric hung outside in a torn length, its bottom edge fluttering over the stone courtyard. Threads trailed from it like pale veins.
Margaret stood near the doors. Her dark shoes were clean except for a gray smear from the balcony dust. She looked at the broken edge, then at me, with the patient expression she used when a meeting ran longer than expected.
Rosa sat against the wall, clutching one hand in the other. Her fingers had already begun to swell. Arthritis had made them stiff on ordinary mornings. Now they trembled so badly she couldn't close them.
“I need a doctor,” I said.
Daniel glanced at Margaret.
That glance lasted less than a second, but it was enough. It wasn't concern they exchanged. It was calculation.
“I'll call,” he said.
“Not you.”
His face changed by almost nothing. The corners of his mouth stayed level, but his eyes sharpened.
Rosa pushed herself up with her good hand. “I'll get the phone.”
Margaret moved between us. “You can barely stand.”
“I can dial.”
“You'll make a mess of this,” Margaret said.
Rosa looked at me instead of answering. That was when I understood the house had already divided itself into two stories: the one they intended to tell, and the one Rosa and I had survived.
Daniel picked up the knife from beside the torn curtain. Its blade was still open. He folded it slowly and slipped it into his pocket.
My stomach tightened.
“Don't touch me,” I said.
He lowered his hand.
Margaret's gaze dropped to my dress, to the blood in my palms, then returned to my face. “You're frightened. That's all.”
I looked at the broken balcony. “The railing gave way.”
“It was old,” Daniel said.
“You cut the curtain.”
His expression didn't move. “I was trying to get you inside.”
I didn't answer. My body remembered the blade opening, the scrape of metal, the threads snapping one after another. It remembered Rosa's grip around my wrist. It remembered Margaret's shoe pressing down.
A narrow strip of the curtain had caught beneath my elbow when they pulled me over the edge. It lay twisted against my side, hidden under the blanket.
I curled my fingers around it.
Daniel stood. “We need to get you upstairs.”
“No.”
“Emily, you can't stay on the floor.”
“I said no.”
He looked toward Margaret again. This time I saw the irritation clearly.
Rosa crossed the room in uneven steps. “Leave her where she is until help comes.”
Margaret turned on her. “Go back to the servants' hall.”
Rosa's mouth tightened. “I'm not leaving her.”
The words were quiet, but they changed the air.
Margaret took one step toward her. Rosa didn't retreat. Her swollen fingers hung at her side, red at the joints.
I pushed myself upright against the bed frame. Pain pulled across my lower back, and for a moment the room tilted. Daniel reached for me, then stopped when I raised my arm.
“I can sit up myself.”
It took three tries. On the third, I made it, with Rosa's shoulder braced against mine. Daniel watched as if he were memorizing where I failed.
From the hallway came the distant ring of a telephone.
Margaret went to answer it.
Rosa leaned close enough that her breath touched my ear. “The envelope,” she whispered.
I kept my face turned toward the balcony.
“What envelope?”
“The one he changed.”
Her eyes flicked toward the hall. “Richard's will. It isn't where Margaret said.”
My hand closed around the curtain strip beneath the blanket.
“Where is it?”
Rosa swallowed against the pain in her fingers. “Drawer under the blue writing desk. Back corner. If they haven't found it.”
Margaret's footsteps returned.
Rosa straightened, and I let my head fall against the bed frame as though I were too weak to listen.
Daniel came back with a clean towel. He held it out.
I took it without touching his hand.
“I'm calling a local clinic,” he said. “We'll explain that the balcony broke.”
The room went still.
Not that I had fallen. Not that he had cut the curtain.
That the balcony had broken.
I pressed the towel against my palm and felt the torn fabric hidden beneath me.
May you like
For the first time since the fall, I made a decision that belonged only to me.
I would find the envelope before they could.
