THE HEIRESS THEY BURRIED
The projection began to dissolve, slowly, gently, light scattering softly into the air around her rather than simply vanishing.
"Lucien," Bee said, her voice already growing fainter.
He knelt again quickly. "I'm here."
"You kept the promise," she said. "Just late. That still counts."
Then she was gone, the common room settling back into ordinary silence, dust motes drifting through flashlight beams where a memory had stood only moments before.
Lucien pressed his palm against his eyes, breathing hard, thirty years of a guilt he'd never consciously understood finally, quietly released.
A soft chime sounded, and where Bee had knelt, a small object materialized on the floor, the Fourth Key, unli