Chapter Five: What the Mirror Sees
1187 Words
"You're not wearing the glasses."
Nate was at the bottom of the stairs when she came down.
Coat on. Keys in hand. Ready to leave.
He looked at her and stopped.
Not dramatically. Not visibly. But he stopped.
Fayth had chosen the dress herself. Midnight blue. Simple, clean lines. Nothing borrowed from Marissa's version of her. She had done her own makeup too. The way she used to, before the erasure. The way she had been quietly reclaiming alone in her bathroom mirror every night this week.
No glasses.
Just her face.
"No," she said. "I'm not."
He held her gaze for a moment. Something moved through his expression and was gone too fast to name.
He offered his arm without a word.
She took it.
They walked out.
* * *
The Whitmore Gala was three hundred people in a room designed to remind them all of their own significance. Candlelight. White orchids. The low constant hum of wealth maintaining itself.
Fayth walked in on Nate's arm and felt every eye adjust.
Not all at once. In ripples. The small double-takes. The recalibrating looks. Nathaniel Blackwood had brought a wife, and she was not what anyone had pictured.
She kept her chin level. Her expression neutral. And she watched.
Who greeted him first. Who hung back. Who looked at her with curiosity versus calculation. She filed everything.
He introduced her twice. "My wife, Fayth." Flat. Practiced.
The second time, the man being introduced glanced at Fayth, then back at Nate, with an expression that carried something she couldn't fully decode yet.
She would figure it out.
She always did.
* * *
Around nine Nate stepped away to deal with two men she recognized from his briefing. He gave her one look before he moved. Stay visible. Don't wander.
She stood near the edge of the room and breathed for the first time all evening.
Then a hand touched her elbow.
From the left. Deliberate.
Silver-haired woman. Late sixties. Dark gown. Eyes that were quiet and urgent at the same time.
"Forgive the intrusion." Voice low. Careful. "I saw you from across the room. I had to come over."
"Do I know you?"
"No. But I knew your mother."
The room noise dropped away.
Fayth turned to face her fully. "You knew her."
"Adeline." The name came out carefully. Quietly. Like something precious. "She had those exact eyes. I would know them anywhere in any room in any city."
Fayth's chest tightened. She kept her face still. "How did you know her?"
"She was connected to people who are still very much alive." The woman glanced past Fayth's shoulder. Her expression shifted. "People who have been looking for you for a long time. You need to know that. You need to be careful."
"Careful of who?"
The woman looked past her again. Fear moved through her face. Real fear.
"The people closest to you," she whispered. "Even the ones who seem to be protecting you."
"Tell me their names." Fayth stepped closer. "Please."
The woman's eyes went wide for a half second. Then she stepped back. Her whole manner shifted. Voice up, social warmth switched on like a light.
"Forgive me, I mistook you for someone else. Enjoy your evening, Mrs. Blackwood."
Gone. Four seconds.
Swallowed by the crowd.
Fayth stood perfectly still.
Adeline.
Her mother's name. A name she had carried alone for twenty-two years, found on one old document, never spoken by anyone in her life. Not her father. Not Marissa. Not once.
And this woman had said it like she grieved her.
Nate appeared at her side.
"Who was that?"
"I don't know." Fayth kept her voice even. "She said she mistook me for someone else."
He looked at the space where the woman had been. Then at Fayth. Sharp. Searching.
"Are you all right?"
Three weeks and he had never asked her that. Not once.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her for a beat longer than necessary. Like he wasn't sure he believed her.
Then he offered his arm and they stayed until midnight and she smiled at everyone she was supposed to smile at and said everything she was supposed to say.
And behind her eyes, the woman's words ran on a loop.
Even the ones who seem to be protecting you.
* * *
The penthouse was quiet when they returned.
Nate went to his study. Fayth went to her suite.
She sat on the bed in her midnight-blue dress and stared at the floor.
Then her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
We have been watching you. It is almost time. Do not trust Elena Blackwood.
Fayth read it three times.
Elena, who had chosen her.
Elena, who her father had told her to obey.
Elena, who had placed her in this apartment, in this marriage, in this life.
If Elena was not safe, then nothing about this arrangement was what it seemed.
She was not a bride.
She was a piece on a board she couldn't see.
Her door opened.
No knock.
Nate.
Jacket off. Tie loose. An expression on his face she had not seen before. Controlled on the surface. Something urgent underneath.
"The woman you spoke to tonight," he said. His voice was low and tight. "She was found unconscious in the hotel stairwell twenty minutes after you left her."
Fayth stood up slowly.
"She's alive," he said. "But she's not talking." His jaw was tight. "Fayth. What did she say to you?"
The room felt very small.
That woman with her mother's name in her mouth. The fear in her eyes. They're watching. Right now, they're watching.
And Nate standing in her doorway. This man she did not know. This man whose grandmother she had just been told not to trust.
Do I tell him? Or is he part of it?
She looked at him.
"She said she mistook me for someone else," Fayth said. Steady. Clear. "That was all."
He stared at her.
Long. Hard. Reading her.
She did not blink.
He nodded once. Walked out.
The door clicked shut.
Fayth sat back down.
Her hands were shaking.
Someone had hurt that woman tonight because she had spoken to Fayth. Because of what she knew.
Because of who Fayth was.
She thought about her mother's name said like a wound.
She thought about her father's face going white at a phone number.
She thought about a black car outside the gate with its lights blinking once in the dark.
Someone had been watching her for a long time.
And something was coming.
She could feel it.
The way you feel a storm before the sky changes color.
She reached for her phone and stared at the unknown number.
Then she typed one line back.
Tell me who you are. Or stop contacting me.
She waited.
Three dots appeared.
Then a name came through.
A single name.
And Fayth's blood ran cold.
Because she recognized it.
She had seen it once before. On that old document. The one she had found at sixteen and memorized and never told a soul.
It was her mother's last name.
- Writer
