Isla
The descent into Vienna began forty minutes before landing—a gradual dropping through cloud cover that revealed the Danube first as a gray thread, then as a river carving through a city that looked like someone had spilled a jewelry box across a map.
"Your family," I said, watching the wing tilt as we banked east. "Who exactly am I meeting?"
Conrad looked up from his phone. He'd spent the last hour of the flight reviewing something in German—emails, I assumed, though the speed of his scrolling suggested he was avoiding rather than working.
"My mother, obviously. Her younger sister, Erzsébet—my aunt. She's been living in the palais since her husband died." He set the phone face-down on the armrest. "My cousin Martina. We call her Tina. She's Erzsébet's daughter."
"That's all?"
"T
