The Revenge of One Humiliated
Because Martha adopted me.
Legally, irrevocably, with all the cold pomp and efficiency that fortune and the law allow. The papers are in the safe, signed by judges whose careers depend on donations from the Hammond Foundation. My birth name, the one that smelled of mud and blood, was legally erased, dissolved in the acid of legal procedures. I am Élianor Hammond. Her daughter. Her sole heiress. Before the law, before society, before the history of this city, I am of her blood. The blue blood of the Hammonds, tinged with the red of my own anger, has flowed in my veins and been sanctified by seals and parchments.