Serena hadn't seen her mother in nearly two years.
Not since the funeral. Not since the white flowers that never smelled like comfort and the condolences that came from lips too perfectly lined with red. Not since Margot Harrow looked her daughter in the eyes and whispered, "You'll understand one day," like that was permission to bury the pain and call it legacy.
But Serena was done understanding.
Now she wanted answers.
And the address scribbled in her father's final letter had brought her here—an unmarked brownstone in the quiet folds of Paris, just off Rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques. Not quite hidden. But forgotten.
Like Margot wanted to be.
The driver waited as Serena stepped out, coat cinched tight around her waist, the winter wind nipping at the edge of her heels. Damon stood beside her, silent. Watchful.
He hadn't asked her not to go.
He'd simply said: "I'll be here if she tries to break you."
That was enough.
---
The door creaked open on the third knock.
She hadn't expected Margot to answer herself.
But there she was.
Still beautiful.
Still poised.
Still terrifying in a way that had nothing to do with the way she looked, and everything to do with the way she never looked away.
"Serena," Margot said, her voice like silk over frost. "I thought you might come."
No smile. No embrace.
Just inevitability.
Serena walked past her into the apartment. It was stark—glass and gray stone, with only one photo on the shelf: Serena, as a child, sitting on her father's shoulders.
She didn't know whether that made it better… or worse.
Margot poured tea. Jasmine. No words. Just the careful clink of porcelain.
"Don't pretend we're here for tea," Serena said flatly.
Margot raised a brow.
"You always were dramatic."
"No," Serena replied. "I just finally stopped playing polite."
She pulled the letter from her coat and dropped it onto the table between them.
Her mother didn't even flinch.
"So," Serena said, arms crossed, voice trembling with the fury she'd carried since she was ten years old, "how long were you part of it?"
Margot didn't answer.
She sipped her tea first.
Then:
"Longer than your father knew."
---
The silence that followed was sharp.
It sliced straight through Serena's chest.
"You let them kill him."
"No," Margot said softly. "I loved him."
"Then why did he die and you lived?" Her voice cracked now. "Why was he the one left bleeding on the floor, and you the one who disappeared like a ghost?!"
Margot finally looked at her—really looked.
And something shifted.
Something broke.
"You think I didn't try to stop it?"
Serena's hands balled into fists.
"You think I didn't scream when they chose him over me? That I didn't beg to take his place?" Margot's voice was shaking now. "But he made me promise too. He said, 'If it's me or her—protect Serena. Even if it means hating me.'"
Serena's vision blurred.
Her knees gave slightly, and Damon stepped forward from the corner.
But Margot lifted a hand.
"She has to hear this," she said, barely above a whisper.
"Why?" Serena choked. "Why keep it all hidden from me?"
"Because the Circle doesn't forget." Her mother's voice turned cold again. "If you knew too soon, they would've come for you too."
"But they did come," Serena said bitterly. "They just waited until I was old enough to feel it."
Margot stood.
Walked to the shelf.
Took down the photograph.
"I stayed alive so I could erase your name from every list they ever made," she said. "Do you have any idea how many times I had to kill for you? How many times I had to bleed without leaving a stain?"
Serena stared at her mother like she was seeing her for the first time.
Not as a monster.
Not as a victim.
But as something far more dangerous:
A survivor.
---
"What now?" Serena asked, voice small.
Margot turned slowly.
"I'm tired, Serena."
Her lips trembled for the first time in years.
"They want you back in the Circle. Not to kill you. To crown you. You're the last true Harrow. The fire they couldn't control. And they believe if they get to you, they can rebuild what they lost."
"I won't let them."
"I know," Margot said softly. "But they won't ask."
---
Back outside, Serena leaned into Damon's side, the cold air biting through her skin like knives. He wrapped his coat around her, fingers brushing her cheek with the gentleness she hadn't realized she needed.
"She loved him," Serena said quietly. "She loved him. But it didn't save him."
"No," Damon said. "It saved you."
She turned to him then.
Eyes brimming with the fire that always came before her steel.
"I'm not going to run anymore."
He nodded.
"I know."
"I'm going to end this. All of it."
"I'll stand with you."
Serena lifted her chin.
And for the first time, she didn't feel like a daughter of the Harrow legacy.
She felt like the storm her father had written about.
The one even death couldn't contain.