MARGARET’S POV
Age teaches you something power never can, patterns. I have lived long enough to recognize the shape of danger before it speaks. It has a rhythm. A patience. A certain polished calm that hides calculation underneath. My daughter-in-law wears that calm like perfume.
Laura Robinson does nothing loudly. Which is why she is most dangerous when she is quiet.
I sit in my private sitting room with a shawl over my shoulders, though the house is warm. Recovery has made my body slower, but not my mind. My mind is sharper than it has ever been, sharpened by fear, by love, by the knowledge that my grandson is standing at the edge of a storm he cannot yet see in full.
Lavender is asleep in the east wing. I made sure of it personally. New medical staff, rotational supervision. Two ind
