Cecilia could no longer remember how to cry. She simply called for her mother again and again, voice cracking like ice.

At the shout, the nurses and doctor rushed in, stethoscopes already searching. Nathaniel barreled past them, gathering Cecilia into his arms before her knees buckled.

She stared at the motionless figure on the bed, her entire body trembling.

"Quick-someone wake my mom up!"

The doctor pressed his stethoscope to Queenie''s silent chest one final time. A long breath deted his lungs, and the gray in his face deepened. Turning to the family, he spoke in a hush that seemed afraid to break the air. "She''s gone."

The words were boulders dropped from the ceiling. Cecilia felt every vein sh- freeze, as if her blood had turned to winter ss. She could not breathe, could not blink-could only stand inside the shattering silence.

Blindly, she seized Nathaniel''s hand. Her fingers locked so hard his knuckles nched, yet her eyes stared past the walls, emptied of focus or light.

"Got it," Nathaniel murmured, voice low but unarguable. He motioned to the staff. "Please give us the room."

The door closed behind the nurses. Only the two of them remained, the scent of antiseptic now thick with somethingrger-grief, raw and echoing.

Nathaniel folded Cecilia into his arms. One hand kept a slow rhythm on her shoulder, as though rocking sorrow itself. "If you need to cry," he whispered near her ear, "let ite-loud as it has to be. It will help you breathe again."

The gentleness in his tone pried open the dam. Tears slipped, then streamed, then rained, each sob tearing loose from the cage of her chest.

All my life I''ve craved a mother''s arms-thought the luxury was meant for someone else. Then fate led me to my own mother atst, and I believed we still had time-ordinary, sun-lit time to be a family. But her body dwindled day by day, and Cassandra''s poison only sped the clock. Now the clock has stopped...

"Nathaniel, it hurts-my heart feels like it''s tearing apart..."

He held her tighter, as if his embrace might stitch the wound. "I know," he breathed. "I know."

People outside the room couldn''t help shed tears, too. Quiet weeping threaded the corridor.

Time lost its measure. Atst, Cecilia wiped her eyes, steadied her breath, and stepped from the room-face swollen, purpose firming beneath the grief.

She would have to tell every friend and rtive that Queenie had slipped away. The first call went to Scorpius.

He arrived in long strides, but no tears came. His gaze anchored on Queenie''s face, as if willing her eyelids to lift once more.

"Mdm. Queenie..." The single title trembled out of him-half greeting, half farewell.

He had never dropped the formal address-always her loyal lieutenant.

Now that same loyalty bent his knees. A broad-shouldered man sank to the tile floor beside the bed, eyes rimmed in red.

"Mdm. Queenie..." The words repeated, hollowed by helplessness. No othernguage would form, so he offered the only thing he had left-her name.

Scorpius had loved her in silence for years, content to orbit her world, guarding from the shadows. He would have traded every heartbeat now to pull her back.

Cecilia spoke softly. "Scorpius, Mom said yesterday she wanted to go home. Come with us to Drocver. Help me honor that wish."fn1e01 Find the newest release on find?novel/fn1e01

He lifted his head, eyes zing with fresh tears, and gave a single, resolute nod. "Okay. Together, we''ll take her home."

Cecilia had already called her aunt, Brooklyn, with the news.

Brooklyn had known her sister''s body was failing; still, the confirmation cracked herposure, and she wept until her voice was threadbare.

Through tears, she promised to tell their parents herself.

Cecilia would leave Tud for a while, andpany matters were handed to her deputies. She squeezed Charlotte''s hands. "Lottie, I''m counting on you in the meantime."

Charlotte dabbed at the tears

dabbed

tracking down her cheeks, forcing

her voice to steady even as it

cilia

quavered at the edges Cecil

please don''t speak of such things: I give you my word. I''ll guard the

heartbeat. You can rest easy."

s

Cecilia inclined her head-no flourish, just a soft, weary hum of acknowledgement

that said everything and nothing at once.

In the hours that followed, cousins, uncles, and distant aunts from the Rainsworth family streamed through the doorway like a muted tide. Their condolences filled the house with hushed voices and the scent of lilies.  s

News of Queenie''s passing burst across the city almost before dawn could dry the dew, a headline carried on every glowing screen and whispered in every corridor.

Inside Jamieson Group, boardroom lights burnedte. Certain executives— smelling opportunity the way wolves scent blood-began prowling for advantage.

Once thest arrangement in

Drocver was signed and sealed, Cecilia climbed into the funeral coach beside Nathaniel Together they escorted queenie''s silent body. back to Tud, the road unspooling beneath swirling winter fog.  s

By the time the hearse reached the old Jamieson homestead, Queenie''s parents, who had received the news, looked as though a decade had been carved from their spines overnight.

Yet when Cecilia stepped into their arms, they greeted her not with tears but with the fragile courage of the elderly, patting her shoulders as though she were still a child awakened from a nightmare.

Alphonse said, "Ceci, don''t drown yourself in sorrow. Your mother''s path ended where it was always meant to end. Hold on to what remains."

Bethany drew the young woman close, her wool shawl smelling faintly ofvender. "That''s right, sweetheart. Deathes for us all-there''s no need to fear it."

Their calm eptance stung more sharply than any wail. Cecilia wished she had told them of Queenie''s illness months earlier-so they might have stolen a few sunlit afternoons together.