Chapter 2 — Twenty Again, Not Young
Seraphina did not scream.
The impulse passed through her like a failed current—sharp, bright, gone. Her body sat upright in bed, breath uneven but controlled, palms pressed flat against the sheets as though anchoring herself to something solid.
The room was wrong in too many precise ways.
The curtains were cotton, not silk. The dresser was lighter, scuffed at the corner where she'd once dragged it too close to the wall. The air smelled faintly of detergent she hadn't used in over a decade.
Her childhood room.
No—her young room. The one she'd occupied after university, before marriage, before Edmund, before everything hardened.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed.
They touched the floor without protest.
No stiffness. No ache in her lower back. No familiar, dull pain behind her right knee that had settled in after thirty. Her body responded instantly, obediently, as if it had been waiting years for instruction.
That, more than anything, unsettled her.
From the hallway came movement—soft, unhurried footsteps. A door opening. The clink of porcelain.
Ordinary sounds.
Domestic sounds.
Sounds that belonged to a time when nothing had gone wrong yet.
"Seraphina?" her mother called again. "If you're awake, breakfast is getting cold."
Celeste Valehart's voice carried no strain. No fatigue. No echo of hospitals or funerals or grief sharpened into politeness. It was warm, mildly amused, threaded with the kind of affection that assumed it would always be answered.
Seraphina stood slowly.
Her knees didn't tremble.
Her reflection waited for her in the mirror across the room.
She approached it with care, like someone nearing a body to confirm whether it was truly alive.
The woman staring back at her was unmistakably herself—and unmistakably younger.
Twenty, exactly as she remembered: softer around the edges, skin untouched by the careful discipline of concealment, eyes clearer, lashes darker without effort. Her hair fell down her back in loose waves she hadn't had the patience for in years.
But the eyes were wrong.
Not in shape. In weight.
They held too much.
This face had not lived what she had lived. This body had not carried three pregnancies to loss. These hands had never signed their own erasure.
And yet—
She met her own gaze and felt the familiar, steady presence behind it. The part of her that had learned silence the hard way. The part that measured rooms before entering them. The part that had learned how fear disguised itself as reason.
She was not young.
She was early.
The realization settled in her chest, heavy but precise.
Time had not been kind enough to take her innocence. It had only moved her position on the board.
"Coming," she called, testing her voice.
It came out clear. Unhesitant. No hesitation at the edges.
That, too, was wrong.
She dressed quickly, choosing the first acceptable outfit she found—soft trousers, a blouse she remembered liking because it didn't require thought. Her hands moved with a familiarity that made her pause.
Muscle memory without permission.
She descended the stairs slowly.
The house revealed itself in fragments as she went: the curved banister polished weekly by staff who still smiled easily; the family portraits untouched by mourning; the sunlight spilling across the entryway floor without obstruction.
The kitchen was alive with quiet motion.
Alaric Valehart stood near the counter, reading something on his tablet, glasses perched low on his nose. He looked up when he heard her steps and smiled—a real one, unguarded, the kind that reached his eyes.
"There she is," he said. "I was starting to think you'd slept through the morning."
Celeste stood at the stove, apron tied loosely around her waist, hair pinned back with a clip Seraphina remembered buying for her years ago. She turned, spatula in hand, and frowned lightly.
"You look pale," she said. "Did you sleep?"
Seraphina stopped at the threshold.
Her parents were alive.
Not as ghosts. Not as memory softened by regret.
Alive in the careless way that assumes tomorrow exists.
Her throat tightened—not painfully, but sharply, like a blade pressing just enough to remind her it was there.
"I slept," she said. "Just… oddly."
Celeste hummed, unconcerned. "You always do. Sit. Eat before your father starts a lecture about routines."
Alaric snorted. "Discipline builds character."
"It builds resentment," Celeste replied pleasantly.
They smiled at each other.
The sight struck Seraphina harder than the mirror had.
This—this ease, this familiarity unburdened by loss—was something she had not realized she'd been carrying as an absence. Watching them now felt like looking at something priceless returned without warning.
She took her seat at the table.
The chair did not feel like an anchor.
Breakfast unfolded normally.
Too normally.
Celeste asked about her schedule for the day—meetings, a lunch she'd nearly forgotten, a charity event her mother clearly expected her to attend without dread. Alaric commented on market trends, his voice light, his concern abstract rather than urgent.
They spoke to her, not around her.
No one corrected her. No one rephrased her sentences. No one watched her with concern masked as affection.
She answered carefully.
Not because she feared saying the wrong thing—but because she feared saying too much.
Every familiar detail came with an echo of how it would end.
She knew which roads her parents would die on.
She knew which contracts would be weaponized.
She knew which kindnesses would become leverage.
Nothing had been taken yet.
And she knew, with a clarity that made her spine straighten, that this—this morning—was ordinary in a way she would soon learn to treasure.
The knowledge did not make her cry.
It made her attentive.
When Celeste brushed past her to refill her coffee, Seraphina flinched.
The movement was instinctive. Uncontrolled.
Her mother paused. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Seraphina said quickly. Too quickly.
Alaric's gaze sharpened, just a fraction. "You're sure?"
She nodded. "I'm sure."
They exchanged a glance—not alarmed, but curious.
That was the first warning.
She finished her coffee and stood, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her clothes.
"I should get going," she said. "I'm meeting Isolde later."
Celeste smiled. "Good. It's been too long since you spent time with her."
Seraphina paused.
Isolde Mercer.
Her chest tightened, this time with something warmer, sharper.
"She's… still here?" she asked carefully.
Alaric raised an eyebrow. "Of course she is. Why wouldn't she be?"
"No reason," Seraphina said. "Just checking."
Later. She would learn how much later.
She moved toward the door, her mind already reorganizing itself around a single, stabilizing truth:
She had not been given answers.
She had been given time.
And time, she knew now, was not mercy.
It was responsibility.
As she reached for her bag, a familiar name surfaced uninvited.
Edmund Hawthorne.
Her hand stilled.
She could feel him like a shadow cast forward through years—charming, attentive, already preparing the version of himself that would be safest to trust.
He would notice soon.
Not today. Not immediately.
But Edmund had always been good at sensing shifts in gravity.
And Seraphina Valehart was no longer bending.
She stepped out into the morning light.
The world continued as though nothing had changed.
But something had.
And it was watching carefully.