The chest sat at the foot of my bed like a sleeping animal.
Old, heavy, carved with the same swirling patterns that decorated my mother’s jewelry box. I had seen it my whole life. My father always said it was full of blankets and keepsakes. Nothing important. Nothing worth looking at.
A lie.
A complete lie.
I knelt in front of it, fingertips brushing over the worn wood. The carvings caught beneath my nails in familiar grooves. My mother’s patterns. The ones she used to trace on scraps of wood when she thought no one was watching. Spirals. Curves. The moon half hidden. A small star caught in the hollow of a circle.
The same shapes I had seen in blood yesterday.
My breath wavered.
Ronan closed the door behind us with a quiet click. He stayed near the wall, not looming, giving me space
