"A small, locked box. Grand-mère completely panicked when she saw it. She said it belonged to my father, Lianna's father. And she said only one person knows how to open it."
"Who?" I asked, my heart pounding. All the Ashworth family secrets seemed connected to Northvale's secrets.
"She said... only your mother, Cassian, knew how to open it. It's a code she created before marrying my father."
I went silent. My mother. The woman who died when I was little, who had always been a great mystery.
"Lianna, I... I never knew my mother had a secret connection to your father."
"I didn't either. But there's an audio recording embedded in the box. A recording triggered when Valerian's old security system reacted to the emergency Phoenix signal I created when the auditors came."
Lianna walked ove
