Chapter Twenty-Three: Beneath the Crown, A Thorn

Ivy

The letter trembled in Lucien’s hands like it weighed more than any blade.

“He’s not your enemy. She is.”

A single sentence. Written in precise, taunting script. No signature. No blood this time—just ink, and a deeper kind of poison.

Lucien read it again. And again. Until I reached for it.

“It’s bait,” I whispered. “He’s trying to turn you against me.”

He didn’t answer.

He just kept staring at the paper, as if the words were still rearranging themselves into something worse.

“Lucien…”

His eyes finally met mine. And I saw it—hesitation.

Not doubt. Hesitation.

He didn’t think I was the enemy.

But he wasn’t sure I wasn’t, either.

The silence between us on the drive back to Manhattan was thick enough to drown in.

I watched the ocean blur past through the window, my reflection superimposed over crashing waves. I couldn’t tell if the pit in my stomach was fear, or something darker.

Something like guilt.

But guilt for what?

I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Had I?

The necklace burned cold against my chest. I’d slipped it back on before we left Montauk, daring fate to react. Lucien hadn’t said a word about it, but I noticed the way his gaze flicked to it when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“Say it,” I finally broke the silence.

His grip tightened on the wheel. “Say what?”

“Whatever’s chewing you alive. Don’t spare me.”

His jaw flexed. “You think I don’t want to believe you?”

“Then believe me.”

“Ivy, he knows things no one else should know. About you. About your mother. About—” He stopped himself.

“About what?”

He glanced at me, then back to the road. “About the nights you scream in your sleep.”

I stilled. “How would he know that?”

Lucien didn’t answer.

I didn’t ask again.

Because deep down, I already knew what his silence meant.

Back at the estate, something had shifted.

Security was doubled. Cameras had been added inside the halls—something Lucien swore he’d never do. The staff walked on eggshells.

And someone had moved the portrait again.

It now hung across from our bedroom door.

The Ivy in the painting didn’t cry golden tears anymore.

She bled them.

Later that night, I wandered into Lucien’s private gallery—what I called the room of unfinished shadows.

Dozens of canvases leaned against the walls, all half-finished renderings of men in suits, women in silk, faceless ghosts of the Blackwood line.

But one caught my eye.

It was new.

Wet paint.

Still drying.

It was a woman, curled on the ground, hair fanned out like a crown of thorns.

And her face?

Mine.

Painted with exquisite precision.

Except her eyes were empty sockets.

A hollowed-out queen.

I heard Lucien’s voice behind me before I felt him.

“I didn’t paint that.”

I turned slowly. “Then who did?”

He shook his head. “It was here when I came back from Montauk. No staff saw anything. The cameras glitched for eight minutes.”

A chill ran down my spine. “He’s in the house again.”

Lucien nodded. “And he wants you to feel it.”

That night, I lay beside Lucien in bed, but I didn’t sleep.

I couldn’t.

Because when I closed my eyes, I saw that faceless version of me.

And worse—I felt her.

Inside me.

Scratching.

Begging to be known.

At 3:12 AM, I sat up.

Lucien stirred beside me. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere I should’ve gone weeks ago.”

The vault was buried beneath the east wing. I had found it in the blueprints during one of our early nights in the archive, but Lucien had brushed it off, claiming it hadn’t been opened in decades.

That was a lie.

It was unlocked.

Dust-free.

Someone had been inside it recently.

The moment I stepped in, the air shifted.

Old documents. Photos. A scent like sandalwood and secrets.

I found a trunk at the back. Leather-bound. Stamped with M.S.

Margot Sinclair.

My mother.

I opened it with trembling hands.

Inside were:

A silk scarf I remembered her wearing once, when I was nine.

A perfume bottle shaped like a dagger.

And a stack of letters.

All addressed to Reagan Blackwood.

I sat on the floor and opened the top one.

Reagan,

I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of hiding. Of pretending Ivy belongs to him.

You said she would change everything. That she was born to break the crown.

I’m scared of what that means.

Margot

My breath caught.

I read the second letter.

Then the third.

Each one a deeper descent into fear and love and prophecy.

Each one confirming one horrifying truth:

My mother had been in love with Reagan Blackwood.

And she’d known who I truly was.

I returned to the bedroom like a ghost.

Lucien was awake. Waiting.

He sat up when he saw me.

“What did you find?”

I dropped the letters on the bed between us.

He read the top one.

And his face changed.

Not rage.

Not grief.

Something worse.

Clarity.

“You’re not Victor’s,” he said slowly.

“I am. Legally. But…”

“But you’re his by blood.”

I nodded once.

Lucien stood. Backed away from me.

Like I was a weapon now. Like the enemy had already gotten in—through my veins.

“You knew?”

“I just found out.”

“Did you?”

I walked toward him. “Don’t do this.”

He looked at me like he didn’t know me anymore.

Like Reagan had already won.

“Ivy…”

“What?”

He swallowed. “I don’t know if I can protect you now.”

I stood tall. “Then don’t. Stand beside me, or get out of my way.”

The next morning, Lucien was gone.

Not a note.

Not a whisper.

Only the portrait across the hall had changed again.

This time, it showed me wearing a crown of roses.

But every rose had thorns.

And every thorn was dipped in blood.