[Ava's POV]
The photograph of her mother—the mother who was not a ghost, but a prisoner of silver light and cold science—burned a hole in Ava’s reality. It was a keystone, and removing it caused the entire arch of her identity to groan and crack. The hidden ledger room, with its relics of old sins, was no longer a sanctuary. It was a cage built from the bars of a past she never chose, its walls closing in with every whispered secret and every stolen glance.
“I can’t,” she whispered, her voice frayed at the edges, thin as worn lace. She pushed herself up from the leather chair, the photograph fluttering from her numb fingers to the oak desk like a dying leaf. “I can’t be this. This… experiment. This knot you’re all tied to.”
She looked at Lucien, his face carved from grim resolve; at Ja
