The lilies looked wrong in the Cold Palace.
Too alive. Too soft. Their white petals held the light like satin, as if they'd been cut from a wedding and dropped into a morgue by mistake. Mira Lark kept them cradled in both hands, careful, reverent—like she was carrying a newborn.
Evelyn's wrists ached against the leather restraints. The ash on her tongue made the air taste flat, but the lilies still found a way through—green, wet, faintly sweet, and underneath it the sour mineral bite of stems snapped too recently.
Mira's smile stayed fixed. "They said you like white."
They said. Always they. Evelyn let her gaze rest on the pearl clip in Mira's hair, the way it caught the seam-light and threw it back. A small, deliberate shine. Mira had dressed for this. Cream coat, clean lines, lipstick the color of a healing bruise. Not mourning, not celebration. Something in between. Something that could pass as either depending on who was watching.
And someone was always watching.
Behind Mira, Dorian Wren lingered near the door with the patience of a man who didn't need to be anywhere else. The attendants stood like punctuation marks—silent, identical, eyes down. The glass wall held Evelyn's reflection at a slight angle, a ghost of herself hovering over the bed: ink-dark hair, pale mouth, eyes bright with spite because spite was cheap and still available.
Evelyn breathed shallowly. The Wire behind her ribs pulled once—subtle, like a thread snagging on a nail. Somewhere far north, Silas existed. That knowledge sat in her chest like a coin you couldn't spend.
"I didn't know the Cold Palace accepted deliveries," Evelyn said. Her voice came out thin, scraped raw by velvet dust.
Mira's eyes flicked to the restraints and back up with practiced gentleness. "Not deliveries. Visitors." She stepped closer, stopping just outside the bed's reach, as if there were an invisible line on the floor that belonged to Evelyn. "I asked for permission."
"And they gave it," Evelyn murmured, tasting the shape of the sentence. Permission in a place designed to remove it. "You must be valued."
Mira's smile deepened by a millimeter. "I'm useful."
Useful. Evelyn's mind did what it always did when it sensed a trap: it laid the room out like a floor plan. Exits. Cameras. Angles. Leverage.
Mira held the bouquet out again, arms extending, offering without offering. The lilies hovered in the space between them—close enough to smell, too far to touch.
"Set them down," Evelyn said.
Mira hesitated, then glanced at Dorian.
He didn't nod. He didn't need to. He simply watched, and the watching gave its own orders.
Mira crossed to the small metal table beside the bed—the one with the tablet still glowing faintly, the pregnancy report waiting like a verdict—and set the lilies down with care. The stems clicked against steel. A drop of water slid from the bouquet's wrap and spread into a thin, trembling puddle.
Evelyn stared at that puddle until it stopped moving. It reminded her of something she didn't want to name.
Mira's hands were empty now. She folded them at her waist. "You look… composed."
Evelyn's lips tightened. Composed was what people called a woman who didn't give them the satisfaction of breaking. Under the ash, her skin felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. But the pressure in her chest—where the Wire lived—was not distant at all. It was a quiet tug-of-war between her plans and the fact of Silas's continued breathing.
"Did you come to admire me?" Evelyn asked. "Or to measure me?"
Mira's gaze dropped to Evelyn's abdomen—so quick it could have been accidental, except Mira's whole face was built out of intention. Then her eyes rose again, soft as a hand over a mouth.
"I came because you're alone," Mira said. "And because everyone thinks you're dangerous when you're alone."
The attendants shifted, almost imperceptibly. The lights hummed. Evelyn felt the Cold Palace listening harder.
"Everyone," Evelyn echoed. "The family."
Mira's throat moved as she swallowed. "Yes."
Which family, she still hadn't said. Thorne. Vance. Or the older thing underneath both—whatever had always been fed with weddings and funerals and bloodlines.
Evelyn turned her head slightly, letting her gaze slide past Mira to Dorian at the door. "Is this part of Internal Compliance's process? Flowers and friendly faces?"
Dorian's expression didn't change. "Miss Lark is not Internal Compliance."
Mira's mouth twitched—annoyance or fear, quickly buried. "I'm… liaison."
"To whom?" Evelyn asked.
Mira's eyes held hers, and for a beat the sweetness drained away, leaving something sharper beneath. "To the parts of this city that don't show up on corporate org charts."
Evelyn felt a chill climb her spine that had nothing to do with the Cold Palace's sterile air. In her childhood, the Vance women had spoken in half-phrases behind closed doors—about knots and tethers and "old agreements." They'd worn designer dresses to charity galas and kept salt in their pockets like talismans.
Modern city. Ancient fear.
Evelyn's fingers flexed against leather. The clasp bit. Pain flashed clean and bright, one of the few sensations that still cut through the ash's fog.
"What do you want?" she asked Mira.
Mira's eyes flicked to the lilies, then to the tablet. "I want you to understand what's happening."
"I understand perfectly," Evelyn said. "They're trying to use me as bait."
Dorian's voice slid in, smooth as a blade. "We prefer 'incentive.'"
Evelyn didn't look at him. Looking at him felt like granting him shape. "And you," she said to Mira, "what are you? The hook?"
Mira's cheeks colored slightly, as if Evelyn had touched a nerve. "I'm the warning."
The word landed heavy. Warning from what? From whom? Evelyn's pulse thudded once, slow and thick.
Mira took a step closer to the table, her fingers hovering over the bouquet's wrap. She didn't touch it. She didn't need to.
"Lilies are for funerals," Evelyn said quietly.
Mira's eyes softened again, too quickly. "They're also for forgiveness."
Forgiveness. Evelyn tasted the word like a foreign spice. Her chest tightened, not with guilt exactly—guilt was a luxury she didn't allow herself—but with something adjacent. A pressure. A hairline crack in the corporate cold she'd built around her heart.
The Wire tugged. A steady heat, controlled, present. Silas's resolve. It didn't ask permission. It simply existed, stubborn as bone.
Evelyn forced her voice to stay even. "You don't know me."
Mira's gaze didn't waver. "I know your family."
That was worse.
Evelyn's mind flicked through memories like security footage: her mother's hands shaking as she fastened a necklace; the way her aunt had laughed too loudly at her own wedding; the funeral photos hidden in drawers; the whispered rule—*if you want to live, you don't love.* The curse as a ledger. The curse as a contract.
And now: a pregnancy report stamped in red.
Evelyn's stomach clenched, hard enough to make her breath hitch. She hated the betrayal of her own body. Hated the way the idea of something growing inside her made the room feel smaller, the air thinner, the stakes heavier.
Mira noticed the hitch. Her voice gentled. "They'll keep you numb until you agree."
Evelyn's eyes snapped to hers. "Agree to what?"
"To bring him back," Mira said.
Him. Not *Mr. Thorne.* Not *the asset.* Mira didn't say his name, as if names were spells. As if she, too, believed in them.
Evelyn's throat tightened. "And if I don't?"
Dorian answered, unhurried. "Then you remain here. The Ash continues. Your condition deteriorates." His gaze slid—clinical, cold—to Evelyn's abdomen. "The company's interest in continuity is… not sentimental, Mrs. Thorne. It is strategic."
Strategic. Evelyn's mouth went dry under the ash. She imagined her body as a vessel being evaluated for yield.
Mira's eyes flashed—disgust, maybe, or fear—then smoothed again. "They can't force him through you unless you let them."
Evelyn let out a breath that almost became a laugh. It caught halfway and turned into something rough. "Let them. As if I have choices."
Mira's attention dropped to Evelyn's restraints. She took a small step forward, then stopped—like the floor itself had told her no. The attendants' eyes remained down, but their bodies angled minutely, ready.
Mira spoke softly, careful. "You still have one."
Evelyn stared at her. The white walls pressed in. The lilies' scent thickened, sweetening the air until it felt like rot disguised as perfume.
"One," Evelyn repeated. "Say it."
Mira's gaze lifted to Evelyn's face, and for the first time the smile was gone entirely. What remained was a young woman trying not to shake in a place designed to make people shake.
"You can decide which family gets to own you," Mira said. "Thorne Holdings… or the curse."
Evelyn's heart gave a slow, ugly lurch. The Wire tightened hard enough that she felt it in her teeth, a metallic phantom taste under the ash—like blood remembered.
Silas. Alive. Somewhere. Breathing. And being hunted by his own company.
Evelyn turned her head toward the glass wall, catching her reflection fully now. Her own eyes stared back—bright, calculating, trapped. She looked like a woman who had always believed she could out-negotiate fate.
Behind her reflection, Mira stood with empty hands. Dorian stood with full authority. The attendants stood with their silence like a weapon.
Evelyn spoke without looking away from herself. "You work for the family," she said. "Which one?"
Mira hesitated. In that hesitation, Evelyn saw the hairline fracture in Mira's composure, the tremor she'd been hiding inside her cream coat.
"The one that remembers," Mira whispered. "The one that still pays its debts."
Evelyn's mouth went cold. Debts. Old agreements. Knots.
The knot emblem on Dorian's badge flashed in her mind—stylized, minimalist, modern. A corporate logo masquerading as an ancient sigil.
Evelyn's voice dropped. "What debt?"
Mira's eyes glistened, not with tears yet, but with the bright edge of them. "The Wire."
The word hit the room like a thrown glass.
Evelyn's breath stopped. The tether behind her ribs pulsed once, as if it had been named aloud and woken.
Dorian's gaze sharpened, a fraction of irritation crossing his face—so small most people would miss it. "Miss Lark."
Mira flinched, then steadied herself. "She deserves to know," she said, and the softness in her voice turned suddenly stubborn, almost angry. "If you're going to use her to pull him back, she should know what you're pulling on."
Evelyn's skin prickled. The Cold Palace didn't feel sterile anymore. It felt ritualistic. White walls as altar cloth. Hidden lights as candles. Leather restraints as offerings.
Evelyn stared at the lilies, at their petals curling slightly at the edges, already beginning the slow, inevitable surrender to time.
"Who taught you about the Wire?" Evelyn asked.
Mira's eyes flicked to Dorian again, then back. "Someone who lost everything to it."
Evelyn's chest tightened. Resolve—Silas's—pressed against her from the inside, steady as a hand on her back. It wasn't comfort. It was presence. It was the unbearable fact that he existed with a loyalty she hadn't earned.
Evelyn swallowed. The ash made it feel like swallowing wool.
"Then tell me," Evelyn said, voice quiet enough to be a confession and sharp enough to be a threat. "If the Wire is a debt… who collects?"
Mira's lips parted.
Dorian stepped forward, just one step, and the air seemed to obey him. "That's enough."
Mira's shoulders tensed, but she didn't retreat. Her gaze stayed on Evelyn with a kind of desperate sincerity, as if she were trying to push a message through a closing door.
"The city does," Mira whispered. "The old part under the glass. It always collects."
Evelyn's pulse thudded in her throat. The Wire tightened again—thread drawn taut—until it felt like if she moved the wrong way, something inside her would snap.
Dorian's voice cut clean. "Mrs. Thorne will rest."
An attendant approached with a syringe—clear liquid, mercifully unlabeled. Evelyn's stomach turned. The ash had already stolen so much; she could feel the next theft coming like a shadow.
Mira's eyes widened. "Wait—"
Evelyn's gaze locked on Mira's face. "Don't waste your warning," she rasped. "If you know something, get it to him."
Mira's breath caught. "How?"
Evelyn's lips barely moved. "You said it yourself."
The Wire.
The attendant's hand hovered near Evelyn's arm. The needle glinted. Evelyn's body tensed against the restraints, a futile instinctive recoil.
Mira stared at Evelyn as if seeing her for the first time—not just a prisoner, not just a headline-wife, but a woman holding a knife behind her back and bleeding anyway.
Then Mira nodded once, small and fierce.
Somewhere in the north, under a borrowed name, a man drew a steady breath—resolve coiled tight—and the thin, invisible tether between him and the woman in the white room hummed like a live wire waiting to be touched.