Chapter 3

Freya

Alpha Adrian had sent me back to my room in the same way you might dismiss someone who had caused enough trouble for one afternoon. Firm. Final. No room for questions.

Now I sat on the edge of the big four-poster bed and stared at the wall, but I was not thinking about him or about Celeste or even about what had just happened in the garden.

I was thinking about Lily.

She was clever , I had to give her that. She had told me her mother was one of the maids here, and I had believed her without a second thought. She had those kinds of eyes, bright and playful, full of quiet little plans. I could not even be annoyed at being tricked.

But the thing that would not leave me alone was her age.

Six, maybe seven years old. Which was the same age my daughter would be now , if she was still alive.

If she had not been stolen.

My baby had come early. She was so small when they placed her in the NICU, all soft and warm and perfect, and I had loved her from the very first breath she took. Then one morning I came in and her bed was empty, and no one could explain where she had gone.

For two years I looked. I put her picture everywhere. I walked roads at night and searched places no one else thought to search. And then the authorities told me to stop. They said she was gone. They held a service with an empty little coffin, and everyone said I needed to accept it.

I never did. I never would.

I shook my head slowly. I needed to stop thinking about this. Lily was the Alpha’s daughter. There was no way any of this was connected to me. It was just the way grief worked , you saw something that reminded you, and your whole heart broke open again.

A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts. I opened it to a polite maid who told me all Trial participants were being called to the common room. I followed her down the hall without asking questions.

The common room was wide and bright, with tall windows and a row of velvet chairs. The other women filed in slowly, some throwing curious looks my way, others pretending I was not there. A few minutes after everyone sat down, a man with short brown hair and kind green eyes walked in.

“Good afternoon, ladies. I’m Beta Cole, second to Alpha Wolfe.” He smiled warmly at the room. “I am here to tell you about the Starlight Ball, which the Alpha will be hosting at the end of this week.”

The room filled with excited sounds all at once. I stayed quiet, watching.

“The ball is a formal part of the Trial,” Beta Cole went on, “but it also carries a separate prize. On the night itself, participants will be evaluated on presentation, poise, and elegance. The top five will each receive a cash award. The woman who places first will receive one hundred thousand dollars.”

I felt the number land in my chest like something heavy and warm at the same time.

One hundred thousand dollars.

That was more than enough to clear every bill I owed. It would give me breathing room , time I did not have right now. Time I could use to search.

I needed that money. Whatever it cost me.

Beta Cole clapped his hands together, and a team of maids came in from a side door. “You will now be taken to the dress room, where you may choose from a wide selection of gowns. There is also a fabric station for anyone who wishes to create something of their own , though they will need to do the work themselves.”

He gave the room a last smile and left, and the maids began guiding everyone toward the back of the estate.

The dress room was enormous. Rack after rack of gowns in every color, every fabric, every length. Sequins and silk and soft tulle. I had never seen so many beautiful things in one place.

Celeste and her friends had already claimed the far corner, pulling out the most expensive-looking pieces and making cutting remarks at anyone who came too close. I ignored them and made my way to the fabric table near the back.

My mother had been a seamstress. One of the best I had ever seen in my life. She made gowns for the most important families in the region, sometimes working through the night to finish a piece, and I used to fall asleep curled at her feet in a nest of silk and thread. She taught me everything she knew.

Sewing was the last real thing I had left of her.

I chose a plain black sheath dress from the rack as my base, then gathered a few bolts of fabric, some lace, thread, and a handful of small crystal beads. I carried it all back to my room and got to work.

Two days. That was what it took. Two full days of careful cutting and stitching and pressing , but by the end, the dress was something else entirely. The black sheath had become a long, flowing gown. Lace sleeves, soft and delicate. An embroidered bodice with silver and gold thread wound in quiet, repeating patterns , small roses, tucked between the curves of the design.

I had added the roses last, almost without thinking. Something about them felt right. Something about Lily and her yellow rose drawing, the way she had stuck her tongue out in concentration and said that’s it.

I stepped back and looked at what I had made. My mother would have been proud.

I felt lighter than I had in days. I put my things away and went to the kitchen for food, stomach growling after being hunched over a needle and thread for so long. I grabbed a sandwich and a drink and started back toward my room.

I nearly walked right into Celeste on the way.

She was walking in the other direction, and she had scissors in her hand. She snapped them open and closed with a smile that turned my blood cold. “Nice dress, Freya,” she said softly, and kept walking.

I ran.

I pushed open my door and stopped dead.

The gown was in pieces. Shreds of black fabric and lace were spread across the floor and the bed, threads trailing in the air like smoke. She had cut through every seam, every stitch, every inch of careful work.

It was past repair. All of it.

The ball was tonight.

I dropped my food and sat down in the middle of the mess, and the tears came before I could stop them. All that work, all that care , gone. And with it, any real chance at the prize.

I pressed my hands over my face and let myself be sad for exactly one minute.

Then I picked myself up, wiped my eyes, and went out to the garden because I could not stand to be in that room.

I sat on a bench with my sad little sandwich and tried to think, but nothing came. Without a gown I had no chance tonight. And without tonight, the money was gone.

Footsteps on the stone path made me look up.

Lily was skipping toward me, her curls bouncing. She slowed when she saw my face and came to sit beside me without being asked.

“What happened?” she said, very serious, the way children get when they know something is truly wrong.

I thought about how much to say. She was just a little girl. But there was something about her that felt like safety, somehow.

“Someone ruined the dress I made for the ball tonight,” I told her. I made a small snipping motion with my fingers.

Lily’s eyes went wide and horrified. Then she got that look , the one I had already come to recognize. The bright, secret, planning look.

She grabbed my hand. “Come with me. Right now. Come on.”

She pulled me up from the bench before I could argue and led me back inside, through winding hallways and up two flights of narrow stairs I had not known existed. At the end of a short corridor she stopped, reached under a nearby vase, and pulled out a small iron key.

She put one finger over her lips and grinned.

The door swung open into a room that smelled of dust and old time. I waved my hand in front of my face and stepped in , then stopped breathing entirely.

In the center of the room, inside a tall glass case with soft built-in lighting, was a gown.

Not just any gown.

I would have known my mother’s work anywhere in the world. But this , this was one of hers I remembered. I had been five years old the first time I saw it take shape under her hands. She had asked me to draw a princess dress for her, and I had done my best on a piece of paper with a purple crayon, and she had taken that drawing and made it real.

The gown shimmered even through the glass. Thousands of tiny beads catching the light like stars. A skirt that fell in wide, graceful layers. Long sleeves with soft puffs at the shoulder, coming down to a fine point at the back of each hand.

It was ours. Hers and mine. Our first thing made together.

“Don’t tell Daddy,” Lily whispered beside me, jingling a ring of small keys in the air with a bright, wicked smile.

My heart was so full it hurt. I looked at her , this small, clever, warm little girl , and something in me went very quiet and very sharp at the same time.

Because right there at the back of her neck, as her curls shifted in the draft from the open door, I saw it.

A birthmark. Small and pale. In the shape of a crescent moon.

Exactly like the one my daughter was born with.

My breath stopped completely.