Sealed Page

The treaty had been signed for exactly four days when the first family disappeared.

Lyra heard the news from Mira, who came running up the riverbank just after dawn with her curls tangled and her eyes red from crying. She did not stop until she reached the orchard, where Lyra was helping a group of children carry baskets of blossoms toward the house.

"They're gone," Mira gasped. "Tobias and his wife, and their little boy. Their door was open, and the bed was still warm, and there was a black feather on the pillow."

Lyra dropped the basket she was holding. Blossoms scattered across the wet grass like pale snow.

"The Greave family?" she asked.

Mira nodded, her lower lip trembling. "Tobias said they'd be safe now that the treaty was signed. He said the court couldn't touch them anymore."

Kaelen was already striding up the path from the river, his face hard. He had heard the child's voice from the far end of the orchard, and his expression told Lyra that he had already guessed what she was about to say.

"The Silent Circle?" she asked him.

"Possibly." He crouched beside Mira and touched her shoulder gently. "Did you see anyone?"

"No." Mira's voice cracked. "But Ren said he'd seen someone at the gate last night. A man in a gray coat. He thought it was Mr. Crowe."

The name landed in the air between them like a stone.

Lyra felt a chill run down her spine. Severin Crowe had turned against Varen, and she had trusted him enough to let him walk into the council hall with the ledgers in his hands. But trust was a fragile thing in a world built on lies.

"We need to see the ledgers," she said. "All of them. Now."

Kaelen did not argue. He took her hand as they walked back up the path, and for a while neither of them spoke. The blossoms drifted down around them, soft and fragrant, and the children's laughter faded behind the trees.

"I trusted him," Lyra said at last. "Crowe. I let him stand in front of the whole council with our evidence, and I thanked him for it."

"You had good reason," Kaelen replied. "He gave us the proof that broke my father."

"And now he might be the reason a family is gone."

"Yes." Kaelen's grip tightened slightly. "That is the difficult part of freedom. Every ally is also a person with their own fears and debts. We will have to decide who we can trust, one choice at a time."

Lyra looked up at him. The morning light was caught in his dark hair, and there was a shadow of tiredness beneath his eyes that had not been there a month ago.

"Were you ever afraid of trusting me?" she asked.

He was quiet for a moment, considering. "Every day for the first month," he said. "I thought you would see my father in me and walk away. Then you asked me to tell you the truth about the scar, and I realized you were not looking for a monster. You were looking for someone honest."

"And now?"

"Now I am afraid of losing you," Kaelen said simply. "Which is a much better kind of fear."

Lyra laughed softly and squeezed his hand. For a moment, the world felt steady again.

Then Mira's voice rang out behind them, high and frightened, and the moment shattered.

They gathered in the cellar where Ren had once been hidden, the same room where the foundling records had first been found. Ren had spread the copies across a long wooden table, weighted with stones from the river, and the lamps threw long shadows across the walls.

Maren Holt stood at the end of the table, reading through the placement records with a frown creasing her brow. Seraphine had arrived an hour earlier, her gray dress plain and her silver threads hidden. She stood by the stairs with her arms folded, saying nothing.

"There's a page missing," Ren said, flipping through the ledger with quick, careful fingers. "Here. Between the placements from the spring and the summer. Someone tore it out."

"Or hid it," Maren said quietly.

Ren turned to the last page of the ledger, where a small leather pouch was tucked into the spine. He opened it and drew out a folded sheet of thick cream paper, sealed with black wax.

He broke the seal.

Lyra read the words over his shoulder, and her breath stopped.

This page authorizes the transfer of the Greave family and the remaining children of the southern houses to the holding estate of the Ashmoor line, for safekeeping under the Ashmoor seal. All placements to be made in the name of the court and held in trust until further notice.

At the bottom was a signature in elegant, looping script.

Seraphine Ashmoor.

Beside it, pressed into the paper, was a silver seal shaped like a crescent moon.

The room went completely still.

Lyra slowly turned to look at Seraphine. The vampire woman's face was calm, but her eyes were very bright, and her hands had gone still against her arms.

"That's not possible," Kaelen said quietly. "The Ashmoor house was never part of the placements. My father would have told me."

"Your father told you very little," Seraphine said. Her voice was cool, almost amused. "But you are right. The Ashmoor house was not involved. Not officially."

"Then how is your seal on this page?" Lyra demanded.

Seraphine's smile was thin. "Forgery is a very old art, Lyra. Varen's clerks were skilled, and Varen was not always careful about who held his seals."

"You're saying someone forged it?"

"I am saying," Seraphine replied, "that you should be very careful about who you trust."

Her gaze moved past Lyra, toward the stairs, where Severin Crowe had just appeared, his gray coat dusted with river sand. He looked tired and wary, and his eyes went immediately to the open ledger on the table.

"Ah," he said softly. "You found the page."

Lyra stared at him. "You knew about this?"

"I knew it existed," Crowe said. "I did not know who had written it until last night. I was going to bring it to you this morning, but someone reached the Greave house before I could."

"Who?" Kaelen asked.

Crowe's gaze flickered to Ren, then away.

"A person who was once very loyal to us all," he said quietly, "and who has been desperate to protect a little girl for a very long time."

Ren went pale.

Mira looked up from where she sat on the bottom stair. "Ren?" she whispered.

Lyra's heart lurched. She did not want to believe it. Ren had risked everything to find the families. He had read every name aloud, carried every ledger, bled in the lodge for the children in his care.

But he had also kept the papers. He had kept his own secrets.

"Ren," she said softly. "What did you do?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. His hands were shaking.

Before he could answer, a sharp knock echoed from the top of the cellar stairs. The door swung open, and a young vampire guard stepped through, breathing hard.

"Lady Vale," he gasped. "You must come quickly. The river gate is open. And there are riders on the bank, flying the Ashmoor colors."

Seraphine's expression did not change, but something in her stillness shifted, like a blade being drawn.

"Well," she said, "I suppose it is time to stop pretending."

Lyra looked back at the sealed page on the table, at the crescent moon pressed into the cream paper, and felt the floor tilt beneath her feet.

The treaty had barely dried on the table. And someone had already begun to rewrite it in blood.