The heavy bronze hasp fell against the cedar framing with a hollow, metallic clatter that echoed through the empty vaults of the Conway ancestral estate.
Fiona Conway gripped the iron rim of the master chest, her fingers blanching as she stared down into the cedar interior. Where thousands of stamped silver bars and rows of velvet-lined jewelry trays had once rested under lock and key, nothing remained except a scatter of dried cedar shavings, two dead moths, and the faint ring left by the municipal bailiff’s lead seal. The punitive fines levied by the city magistrate following the failed arson on Maple Avenue, combined with the exorbitant apothecary fees demanded for Bryce’s daily tinctures, had scraped the family coffers down to the bare masonry.
Behind her, the stone threshold groaned
