CHAPTER 68: CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

Marissa’s hands were clamped so tightly around the small, silver locket that its heart shape dug a painful, crescent-shaped groove into her palm.

She was back at the estate, her mind a whirlwind of terror and calculation. The memory of her past life, of Lily’s broken body on the stones below a balcony, was so vivid, so horribly clear, that it was hard to breathe. It was happening again.

She had to go. She could not wait. She thought of ordering a carriage, but the memory of how long it took—the summoning of the footmen, the harnessing of the horses—made her want to scream. It would take fifteen, twenty minutes. The Red Lantern Den was a twenty-minute walk, if she ran. She could beat the carriage.

Then she saw him. Ian, the Duke’s personal guard, his shadow, was walking out of the main study, a heavy leather satchel of ledgers and parchments in his hand. He was on his way to Derek, wherever the Duke was hiding himself.

He was her messenger.

"Ian!"

Her voice was not the calm, measured tone of the Duchess. It was a sharp, urgent, breathless command that made the stone-faced guard stop in his tracks and turn, his eyes wide with surprise.

She ran to him, her skirts gathered in her fists. "Your Grace?" he asked, startled by her panic, her disheveled state.

"There is no time," she said, her voice low and tight. "Lily is missing. I have reason to believe she has been taken, that she is in terrible danger." She held up the locket. "This was found on the street. Please, I need your help. I need the Duke’s help. Find her. Bring her back to me safe."

Ian’s face instantly became a grim, serious mask. A servant of the Duchess being kidnapped was a grave, political offense. "Yes, Your Grace. I will dispatch men immediately. Where should we begin the search?"

"I am going to investigate a lead myself. Now," she said. "By the time you meet with the Grand Duke, I need you to tell him something for me. You must tell him exactly."

"I’m listening, Your Grace."

"Tell him I have gone to the Red Lantern Den on the second street."

Ian’s stony expression flickered. He knew the place. It was the most notorious gambling and pleasure house in the city, a place of filth, debt, and desperation. It was no place for a noblewoman, let alone the Grand Duchess. This was more serious than he thought.

"Tell him to go there," Marissa commanded, her eyes blazing with a fierce, cold light. "Tell him to look for me. It is urgent. Do you understand?"

"Okay, Your Grace," he said, his voice a low, respectful rumble. "I will deliver the message to His Grace personally. At once."

"Thank you, Ian."

She did not wait for him to bow. She did not wait for a single servant to see her. She turned and ran, hiking her heavy skirts, and slipped out of a small, garden side gate, a noblewoman running like a commoner through the streets, her heart a cold, frantic drumbeat against her ribs. Don’t be too late. Not this time. I will not be too late again.

High above the bustling second street, in a private room in the Red Lantern Den, Ashlyn was very calm. The room was gaudy, decorated in crimson velvet and tarnished gold, and it smelled of stale wine, old cigar smoke, and cheap, heavy perfume.

A small, elegant chessboard was set up on a table near the balcony window. Ashlyn, seated in a high-backed chair, slowly, thoughtfully, moved a single, white pawn.

"When someone close is in danger," she whispered to the empty, silent room, her voice a soft, satisfied purr, "when that one, great, past-life failure comes back to haunt them, I don’t think even she can stay calm."

She picked up a black knight, its carved, wooden horse head held between her delicate fingers. She tapped it rhythmically against the board.

Click. Click. Click.

This was her masterpiece. The plan with Nora had been good, but this... this was perfect. It was a test, and a trap, all in one. Lorena, Nora, the gift... those were all just moves in the physical world. This, this was a battle of souls, of memory.

"This move," she said, her eyes gleaming with a cold, thrilling light. "Let me bet on it."

She placed the knight on the board with a soft, decisive thud, capturing a white piece. She was sacrificing a pawn—the stupid, kidnapped maid—to see if the white queen would be foolish enough to come to its rescue.

"I am betting," she said, her voice full of a high, brilliant confidence, "that she will lose her nerve. That she will be so terrified of her past repeating itself, she will be reckless."

A sound. Footsteps.

Ashlyn’s head snapped up, her gaze fixed on the closed door. The footsteps were heavy, urgent, and running up the private, carpeted stairs. They were not the slow, shuffling steps of a gambler, nor the light, quick steps of a pleasure girl. They were the steps of someone in a desperate, panicked hurry.

A slow, cold, and utterly triumphant smile spread across Ashlyn’s face.

"As expected," she breathed. "I guessed right."

She stood up slowly, smoothing the front of her expensive, peacock-blue gown. She turned to face the door, her hands clasped calmly in front of her, her heart swelling with a victory so perfect it was almost divine. She’s here. She ran right into it. She’s reborn, just like me. And she is just as foolish as she was the first time.

The footsteps stopped outside the door. Ashlyn held her breath, savoring the final, perfect moment of her triumph.

The door did not open. It exploded.

It was kicked in with such a violent, brutal force that the wood of the doorjamb splintered and the lock shattered. The door slammed against the interior wall, shaking the entire room.

And in the doorway, framed by his two largest, grim-faced personal guards, stood Derek.

His dark coat was undone, as if he had dressed in a hurry, and his hand was resting on the hilt of his sword. His eyes, cold and assessing, swept the room, taking in the chessboard, the private setting, and finally, his sister-in-law.

Ashlyn’s triumphant, welcoming smile did not just fall. It shattered, evaporating from her face as if it had been struck. Her blood, which had been singing with victory, turned to ice, a cold, heavy stone in her stomach.

She stared, her mouth falling open, her mind a blank, white-hot wall of shock.

This was not Marissa.