Maison Sainte-Isolde appeared on maps as a private convalescence center. In the official photographs, it was almost beautiful. An old estate, pale walls, tall windows, a manicured garden, benches beneath the trees. The kind of place wealthy families sent their own to "rest" when pain became too visible to remain in drawing rooms. In reality, at dawn, behind the car windows, the place looked like a sentence that lied very well. The gate was white. Obviously. Not bright white. Not aggressive. A soft, maintained, almost charitable white. Two cameras followed the road. A discreet intercom. Trimmed hedges. No visible armed barrier. That was the most worrying detail. Truly powerful places do not need to show their teeth. Selene stared at the gate without blinking. On her knees, Claire's notebook. Beside it, Isolde's photograph. The same face as Irina. Almost. An erased twin. A living dead woman. Or proof dangerous enough that her name had been buried before her body. Eden had not spoken for twenty minutes. He sat beside her, Isolde's photograph in his hand, his gaze fixed ahead. Not absent. Worse. Too present in a place no one could reach. Selene felt her own exhaustion like an extra layer of skin. She should have slept. She should have waited. She should have called the police, a lawyer, the whole world, any institution that had not already been contaminated by Lily. But Claire's notebook said people might be locked inside this place. Witnesses. Living people erased. And Eden had just discovered that a sister buried in his childhood might be breathing behind this gate. So they had come. Not alone. Never alone again. Livia in the car ahead, with two men. Maelys and Noe in the one behind, despite the unfavorable opinion of absolutely everyone except Maelys. "I am now a specialist in refuges that go wrong," she had said. "My expertise is tragic but relevant." No one had found an argument solid enough to shut her up. The radio crackled softly.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Livia: "Two agents at the entrance. No visible weapons. Gate connected to an isolated internal system. No public network. No exterior movement." Eden answered: "Althea?" "No visual trace." "Valere?" "Nothing." Selene looked at the gate. "They know we're coming." Eden finally turned his head toward her. "Yes." "So Althea's absence is staging." "Probably." Noe spoke from the second car, channel open. "Or she's letting us in because she wants us to find something." A silence. Maelys added: "Look at him, he's becoming useful and anxiety-inducing. I'm almost proud." Selene did not smile. She looked at Eden. "If Isolde is here..." He briefly closed his eyes. "Don't finish that sentence." "We have to finish it before they do." He watched her for a long moment. Then nodded. Very slowly. "If she is here, I don't know what state she'll be in. I don't know if she'll recognize me. I don't know if she'll want to leave. I don't know if she's a victim, a witness, or..." He stopped. The end was too cruel to come out on its own. Selene said it anyway, gently. "Or if she has been turned into a cog." Eden looked away, toward the gate. "Yes." The car slowed. The white gate opened before they pressed the intercom.
Invitation. Or trap. At this point, the difference was mostly a question of decor.
The courtyard of Maison Sainte-Isolde was too beautiful. Not luxurious like Ashfall. Not staged like Karol House. Beautiful in a soothing, almost maternal way: pale gravel, beds of white flowers, wrought-iron benches, a large glass door, cream curtains at the windows. Lilies grew along the drive. Real ones. Selene stared at them. She wanted to tear them out. All of them. Livia got out first, her weapon hidden under her jacket. Eden followed. Then Selene. The air smelled of wet grass, discreet disinfectant, and white flowers. Noe stepped out of the second car with Maelys. She wore an oversized jacket, a laptop clutched against her, and a can of pepper spray in her pocket. "I would like to state that this 'rest home for rich secrets' atmosphere makes me want to commit a violent administrative act," she said. Livia answered without turning her head: "Stay behind me." "You say that like I want to be in front." The large door opened. A woman in a pale uniform appeared. Not exactly a nurse. Not a maid either. A professional presence, smiling, impeccable. "Monsieur Veyr," she said. "Mademoiselle Moreau. Madame the director is expecting you." Eden stiffened. "Althea is here." "Madame Veyr is always here when her presence is necessary." Selene felt the trap closing through politeness. "And when it isn't?" she asked. The woman smiled. "Then it is anyway." Maelys murmured: "I hate that sentence. It's way too well written for a normal employee." The woman gestured toward the entrance. "Please surrender your weapons." Livia gave a humorless little laugh. "No." The woman's smile did not move. "In that case, the visit cannot begin." Eden stepped forward. "We are not here for a visit." "Yes," said a voice from the hall. Althea Veyr appeared at the top of the small interior staircase. White coat. Hair pulled back. Face perfectly rested, as if the night had not tried to tear pieces of truth from everything she owned. At her throat, no medallion anymore. Obviously. A new jewel replaced it: a brooch shaped like a crossed-out lily. She looked at Eden. Not Selene. Always Eden first. "My son," she said. "You finally arrive at the only place where I truly protected what remained of our family." Silence fell. Eden did not move. Selene felt the violence inside him like atmospheric pressure. She did not touch him. Not here. Not in front of her. She only said: "Left." He breathed. Once. Then placed himself slightly to the left. Althea saw it. For the first time since they had arrived, her gaze slid toward Selene. "You enjoy giving directions." Selene held her stare. "And you enjoy erasing exits. We each have our style." Althea smiled. "Come. Isolde is waiting."
` }, { kind: "body", html: `The hall smelled of Lily. Not only the flowers outside. The wax, the soap, the clean sheets, the disinfected corridors, the vases on the tables: everything seemed organized to produce one same sensation - here, nothing dirty could exist. Lie. The most dangerous filth often wore white. They followed Althea down a corridor lined with glass doors. Behind some of them: lounges. A library. A music room. A painting studio. Patients sitting under blankets. Men and women of all ages, clean, groomed, calm. Too calm. Selene looked at their eyes. Some were absent. Others too present. As if they had learned to survive by looking without seeming to see. "How many people live here?" she asked. Althea answered without turning around: "That depends on what you call living." Noe breathed: "Very reassuring." Maelys elbowed him. "Not now." Livia was speaking very low into her microphone, describing the place to a team left outside. But the signal crackled. The walls were thick. Prepared. Eden stopped before a half-open door. Inside, an elderly woman drew circles on a sheet of paper, always the same circle. On her table, a label: Madame Renard - severe memory disorder. Selene saw the woman's gaze lift toward them. One second. Claire. Not her first name. A recognition. The woman brought a finger to her lips. Then returned to her circles. Selene felt her stomach tighten. "She knows us," she murmured. Althea stopped. "Many patients believe they recognize many things. That is why they are here." "Or that is why you keep them here." Althea's smile turned colder. "You have a touching faith in the lucidity of broken people." Selene thought of her mother. Of Irina. Of herself. "And you have a very clear fear of what they might say in pieces." Althea started walking again. Eden was silent. Too silent. Each door seemed to strip a little certainty from him. They reached a bright gallery overlooking an interior garden. At its center, a fig tree grew beneath a glass roof. A fig tree in a cage. Maelys murmured: "Oh, I hate this." So did Selene. The symbol was too perfect. Captured refuge. Fig under glass. Althea finally turned. "Isolde likes to come here." Eden spoke for the first time since the hall. "Do not say her name as if you have the right." Althea looked at him with a maternal softness so false it could have poisoned the air. "My son, I am the one who left her a name when everyone else would have preferred her to have none." "You buried her." "I hid her." "You took us to her grave." "Yes." No remorse. Not even an effort. "The mourning had to be credible. A dead child attracts fewer questions than a displaced one." Eden took a step. Selene said: "Lily." He stopped. But his eyes did not leave his mother. Althea looked at Selene. "You overuse that word." "No. I am giving it a useful function again."
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Isolde was sitting beneath the fig tree. Selene saw her before Eden did. Or rather, she saw Eden see her. The thing was almost more violent than the sight itself. His face emptied of every defense. No anger. No mask. Not even that hard restraint he wore like a second skin. Only a boy being handed back a dead woman without warning. Isolde Veyr had dark hair, streaked with gray despite her age. The same face as Irina, yes, but not the same light. Irina, in the videos, burned even when exhausted. Isolde seemed to have been kept for a long time in a room where the light must never change. She wore a pale dress, a white cardigan, and held a closed book on her knees. When they approached, she lifted her eyes. They were black. Like Eden's. Exactly like Eden's. He stopped three meters away. "Isolde." His voice broke on the name. The woman tilted her head. "No," she said softly. One word. Calm. Polite. Murderous. Eden stopped breathing. Althea took on an almost sad expression. "She no longer answers to that name." Selene thought of Claire's note. If Isolde is still alive, she will not answer to her name. Lily does not only kill the truth around people. Sometimes it kills their name inside them. To bring her back, do not tell her who she was. Show her who mourned her. Selene moved slightly closer to Eden. Not in front. To the left. "Do not force her name," she whispered. Eden turned his head toward her. The pain in his eyes was almost impossible to look at. "It is her name." "I know." "She has to know." "Maybe not like that." Althea watched them, attentive. She wanted this moment. Eden insisting. Isolde retreating. Selene unable to repair it. A brother turned into an aggressor by love. Another door opened with the wrong hand. Selene turned toward Isolde. "Hello." The woman looked at her. "Hello." Her voice was soft. Almost empty. "My name is Selene." Isolde blinked. Nothing. Then her gaze dropped to Claire's notebook, still held against Selene. A micro-reaction. Not recognition. Not yet. A disturbance. "Is that yours?" Isolde asked. "No. My mother's." "Mothers leave too many papers." The sentence crossed the gallery. Althea stiffened slightly. Very slightly. Selene saw it. "Yes," she said. "Especially when they know someone will silence them." Isolde looked at the fig tree above her. "Here, no one silences anyone." A silence. Then she added: "We help sentences become less dangerous." Maelys, behind them, murmured almost soundlessly: "Oh no." Isolde was not merely detained. She had learned their language.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Eden took a step toward Isolde. She immediately moved back. Not far. Enough. He stopped as if the distance had struck him. "I will not hurt you," he said. Isolde looked at Althea. Reflex. Selene felt Eden's rage rise before he moved. She spoke quickly. "We did not come to take you." Isolde turned back to her. "Everyone comes to take something here." "Yes." The answer seemed to interest her. "You too?" "Yes." Eden turned his head toward Selene. She did not look at him. "I came to find living people who were passed off as dead," she continued. "Names stored in files. People moved so others could sleep better." Isolde lowered her eyes to the closed book. "Names hurt." "So does the absence of names." A crease appeared between her brows. Selene did not push. Not yet. She slowly took out the photograph found in the house with the fig tree. Claire. Adrien. Irina. Isolde. Before Lily. She placed it on the bench beside Isolde without putting it in her hands. "This was in a house my mother had hidden." Isolde did not look right away. Her fingers tightened on the book. Althea spoke: "Selene, you are confusing proof with violence." "No," Selene said. "I am leaving her the choice to look." Althea smiled. "As you wish." It was a trap. Of course. If Isolde refused, Eden would break further. If Isolde looked and collapsed, Althea would say they had destabilized her. If Selene insisted, she would become the one who forced. So she stopped moving. She waited.
Isolde looked at the photograph. At first without reaction. Then she touched Irina's face. Not her own. Irina's. "She came," she said. Eden froze. "Who?" Isolde did not look at him. "The girl who burned in her eyes. She said she would get me out. Then she stopped coming." Eden's breath caught. Selene felt the gallery tilt. Irina knew. Irina came to see Isolde. Irina had tried. Althea said softly: "Irina told many stories." Isolde raised her eyes to her. "Yes." She smiled faintly. "That is why I kept them." Althea no longer smiled. There it was. A crack.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `"Where?" Eden asked. His voice was almost inaudible. Isolde finally looked at him. Truly. She seemed to search for his face in some very distant place. "You have her eyes." Eden did not move. "I am her brother." Isolde tilted her head. "No." The word hit him again. She added: "The brother was little. Angry. He broke glasses when no one listened to him." Eden blinked. Selene felt the pain change. From pure loss to impossible recognition. "I broke a mirror," he said. Isolde frowned. "In the blue room." "Yes." "She said you bled on the carpet and claimed the mirror started it." A strange sound came out of Eden. Not a laugh. Not a sob. Maybe both. "That was my legal defense," he said. Isolde watched him for a long time. Then her eyes filled with tears while her face did not change. "Eden?" The name emerged like an object recovered from water. Damaged. Real. Eden closed his eyes. Selene felt her own burn. Maelys, behind them, whispered: "Oh fuck." Althea took a step. "Isolde." The woman startled. Not obvious fear. Obedience. The name became a cage again. Selene turned her head toward Althea. "Do not use it." "It is her name, is it not?" The cruelty of the answer was perfect. Selene understood what Claire had meant. Do not tell her who she was. Show her who mourned her. The name could free. Or reprogram. It all depended on the mouth. Eden slowly knelt. Not too close. At a distance where she could choose. "Irina mourned you," he said. Isolde looked at him. "No." "Yes." He took out the fig-tree pin found in room 213. "She kept this. Even as she died. She left proof everywhere because she wanted someone to find you." Isolde stared at the pin. Her hands trembled. "Fig tree." "Yes." "She said refuges lie if they have no roots." Selene felt her heart tighten. Irina's phrase. A living phrase. Althea moved closer. "That is enough." Livia raised her weapon. "Stay where you are." Althea looked at Livia with calm contempt. "You are going to shoot in a convalescence home?" Livia answered: "If the convalescence takes one more step, yes." Maelys breathed: "I really love her."
` }, { kind: "body", html: `An alarm started. Not loud. Soft. Almost maternal. Three repeated notes, like a distorted lullaby. The gallery doors locked.
Althea did not seem surprised. Eden stood. "What did you do?" "What you should have done from the beginning," she answered. "Prevent emotions from opening doors." Selene looked around. The patients behind the glass were moving now. Some stood. Others stayed seated, panicked without daring to show panic. The fig tree under the glass roof suddenly looked trapped inside an aquarium. Livia tried to reach the outside. "Signal cut." Maelys pulled out her laptop. "I might be able to..." "Not here," Althea said. "This house was designed to survive people who think every network is a door." Noe looked at the glass roof. "And the real doors?" Selene followed his gaze. Above them, the glass roof. Thick glass, metal structure, ventilation opening at the top. Not a door. So perhaps an exit. Althea saw their gaze. "You will go nowhere with her." Isolde was trembling now. Her eyes moved from Eden to Althea, from the pin to the fig tree, from the photograph to Selene. Too much information. Too fast. Memory was returning like a flood in a house built to stay dry. Selene crouched in front of her. "Look at me." Isolde half obeyed. "You do not need to remember everything right now." "She is lying," Althea said. "They want to use you." "Yes," Selene said. Isolde fixed on her. Even Althea fell silent. "Yes," Selene repeated. "We need you. What you know. What you are. But you do not have to follow us to be useful. You do not have to suffer correctly to deserve being believed." Isolde breathed faster. "I do not know who I am." Eden took a step, but stopped. Good choice. Selene answered: "Then do not start there. Start with what you no longer want." The silence changed. Isolde slowly turned her head toward Althea. For the first time, it was not a reflex. It was a choice. "I do not want the white room anymore," she said. Althea paled. Not much. Enough. Eden murmured: "What white room?" Isolde closed her eyes. "The one where they remove names." Maelys stopped typing. Selene felt Lily invade her throat. Not a white room like the one beneath Karol House. The first one. The original. It was here.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `"Where is it?" Selene asked. Isolde pointed toward the floor. Of course. Always below. Althea smiled again, but something in that smile had cracked. "You see? She invents when she is stressed." Eden turned slowly toward his mother. "You are going to stop talking." "Or else?" He did not answer. He did not threaten her. He looked at Selene. Not to ask permission for his violence. To choose something else. "Selene." She understood. The white room might be the key to the container, the patients, Isolde, the Lily cell. But Althea wanted them scattered, wanted them to leave Isolde, wanted them to rush into the basement with too much urgency. "We do not all go down," Selene said. Livia approved at once. "I stay with Isolde, Maelys, and Noe." Maelys protested: "I can help downstairs." "Exactly," Livia said. "You help upstairs. You find a way to cut the alarm and open the doors without a public network." "You are giving me a technical task to stop me being afraid." "Yes." "Accepted." Noe looked at Selene. "I'm coming with you." "No." "Selene..." "You stay with Maelys. If Isolde remembers anything else, you write it down. You know rhythms, phrases, fragments. That is your role here." He hated not being chosen to go down. Then he understood that being useful no longer meant standing at the center of danger. "Okay." Eden moved toward the locked service door. "And Althea?" Everyone looked at the matriarch. Althea gave an almost amused smile. "You cannot leave me here." Livia answered: "I can very much." "Isolde needs me." Isolde, sitting beneath the fig tree, murmured: "No." One word. Weak. Immense. Althea stopped moving. The center of gravity in the room changed. Selene felt that this "no" was worth more than every piece of proof in the world. Eden felt it too. He briefly closed his eyes. Then he forced the service panel with Livia's help. The lock gave after thirty seconds.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Behind it, a staircase descended. White. Too white. Selene and Eden exchanged a look. "Left?" he asked. "Left," she answered. They descended together.
The staircase went down into a light that seemed to produce no shadow. Selene hated this place immediately. Not the way she had hated the room under Karol House. That one had been built for urgency, for a quick disappearance, for manufacturing a message. This was older. More patient. A place that had never needed to run. Eden walked beside her. Not in front. Not behind. Even in a staircase too narrow for it, he forced himself to keep that absurd line, that lateral promise, as if geography could become moral through effort. "You are shaking," she said. He looked at his hand. It was true. Barely. But true. "Yes." "For Isolde?" "For what I am going to find downstairs." "You are thinking about Irina." "I am thinking about every room where my mother hid women from my family and called it protection." The sentence was calm. But it bled. Selene wanted to put a hand on him. She did not. Not in that staircase. Not with that fear. "Eden." He stopped. So did she. "If what we find downstairs makes you want to kill her..." "It will." She appreciated the honesty. She hated it too. "Then remember that killing Althea will not give the people who lost their names their names back." "No." "Getting them out will." He looked at her. "Do you believe we can get them out?" "I believe we can begin." A sound rose from below. Not a voice. A song. Very faint. A wordless melody.
Selene froze. She knew that melody. Not entirely. The song. The real one, maybe. The one her father had hidden in fragments. The one Claire had given her children like someone hiding a weapon inside a lullaby. Eden murmured: "Do you hear it?" "Yes." "Irina used to sing that." Selene felt the world tighten. "My mother too." They descended the last steps. At the bottom, a glass door. Behind it: a circular white room. And in the center, an old tape recorder played the song on a loop. Not a person. A recording. A lullaby turned into a tool. Eden placed his hand on the handle. "Ready?" Selene looked at the white beyond the glass. "No." He opened it.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `The white room was not a room. It was a theater without an audience. At the center, a tilted medical chair, straps open. Around it, dead screens, shelves of files, bottles, audio headsets, circular lamps. On one wall, dozens of photographs. Some crossed out. Some annotated. Some connected by white threads. Faces. Irina. Isolde. Claire. Adrien. Eden as a child. Selene as a child. Noe. Maelys. Eliane Voss. Marius Lenoir. Marianne Delcourt. Valere. Dante. Althea, at the center. Not as victim. As architect. Selene moved toward the wall. Under each face, one word. Irina: rupture. Claire: flight. Adrien: guilt. Eden: bite. Selene: voice. Noe: rhythm. Maelys: anchor. Isolde: prototype. Prototype. The word was more violent than every threat. Eden saw it. His face closed in a way that was almost dangerously calm. Selene put a hand on the nearest file. ISOLDE VEYR - Initial Lily Program - Nominal erasure / narrative reconstruction. She opened it. Childhood photographs. Reports. Evaluations. Name-response tests. Sessions with Althea. Sessions with Lenoir. Unsigned sessions. A document titled: Objective: allow A.V. to preserve a functional heir while neutralizing risks linked to the double lineage. Selene read the sentence twice. "Double lineage?" Eden was looking at another document. His hand was shaking again. "Isolde wasn't only Irina's sister." "What?" He handed her the sheet. Birth certificate. Two children: Irina and Isolde. Mother: Althea Veyr. Declared father: August Veyr. Biological father added in a confidential medical note: Adrien Moreau. The world stopped.
Selene did not understand. Then she understood too much. Adrien. Her father. Isolde's biological father. Not Irina's? Or was he? She searched the line. Isolde only. One of the twins. Impossible. Rare. But possible. Or falsified. In this world, even biology might have been used as a weapon. Eden stepped back. "No." Selene did not know whether the word came from him or from her. Adrien Moreau had not only served the Veyr family. He was tied to it by a blood secret. Isolde was Eden's sister through their mother. And maybe Selene's half-sister through her father. The chapter became impossible to breathe.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `"It's false," Eden said. "Maybe." "It's false." Selene wanted to say yes. She wanted to give him that certainty. She could not. Not in a room where false reports had killed entire lives. "We don't know," she said. He looked at her. There was something in his eyes that almost asked for a charitable betrayal. Lie to me. Say no. Choose me against the paper. She did not. Because they had already suffered enough from people who lied to make truth bearable. "We verify," she said. "We do not believe. We do not reject. We verify." Eden shut his eyes. Hard. Then nodded. A noise sounded behind them. The glass door had just closed.
On a screen, a light turned on. Valere appeared. Live? Recorded? Impossible to know. Pale suit. Soft smile. "You have found the most vulgar part of the story," he said. "Blood. People love believing blood explains everything. It is so restful." Eden raised his weapon. "Open the door." "You see? Bite. Always." Selene stepped closer to the screen. "What do you want?" Valere smiled. "For you to understand why Althea could not let Isolde exist. A Veyr with Moreau blood. A daughter born of betrayal, an arrangement, a night, or a medical protocol, depending on the version one prefers to sell. Irina was an heir. Isolde was proof." "Proof of what?" "That families calling themselves dynasties are often just better-dressed accidents." Selene felt nausea rise. "Did Adrien know?" "Ah. There is the right question." Valere tilted his head. "Not at first. Then enough to be useful. Not enough to be brave. A Moreau specialty, it seems." Eden shot the screen.
This time, Selene did not say Lily. Not because she approved. Because the screen was not Valere. And because sometimes breaking an image is the only way not to break the person in front of you. The door stayed locked. The song distorted, slowed, almost animal. On the opposite wall, a panel opened. Not an exit. An observation window. Behind it, on the other side of one-way glass, Isolde stood with Althea. Isolde looked at the white room. Looked at the files. Looked at Eden. Looked at Selene. Althea placed a hand on her shoulder. "You wanted the truth," Althea's voice said through a speaker. "Very well. Now tell her what you are to one another." Selene felt her blood turn cold. The trap was not revealing the secret. It was forcing them to carry it in front of Isolde before they knew if it was true.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Isolde looked at Selene with eyes that were no longer empty. Not free yet. But awake. Too awake. She had heard. Of course she had heard. Althea had orchestrated the moment for that: the room, the files, Valere, the blood, the glass. An entire life reduced to a revelation hurled like a weapon into the center of a white room. Eden approached the glass. "Isolde." She did not step back. Not this time. But she did not come either. Selene took the file, lifted it, then placed it slowly on the table. "We do not know if it is true," she said. Althea's voice crackled in the room. "Always this obsession with nuance. It makes you slow." Selene looked at Isolde, not Althea. "We don't know," she repeated. "And even if it is true, you are not what they wrote. Not prototype. Not proof. Not a blood mistake. Not useful heir. Not correct or incorrect sister. Not my problem. Not his problem. A person." Isolde placed a hand against the glass. Her fingers trembled. Eden placed his hand on the other side, unable to touch her.
"Irina mourned you," Selene said. "Eden mourned you without knowing. Claire hid you in her notebook. Even if everything else is filthy, that does not belong to them." Isolde closed her eyes. Althea brought her mouth close to Isolde's ear. They could not hear her. But Isolde stiffened. Eden struck the glass with the flat of his hand. "Do not talk to her." Althea smiled. Isolde opened her eyes. Then, very slowly, she took the fig-tree pin she had kept clenched in her palm. She drove it into Althea's hand. Not deep. Enough to hurt. Enough to bleed.
Althea stepped back, surprised more than injured. Isolde took the badge clipped to her jacket. Passed it over the reader by the glass. The white room door unlocked.
` }, { kind: "body", html: `Eden opened it. Too fast. Then stopped before crossing all the way through. Isolde was there. Two meters away. Free to move back. Free to move forward. Free not to know. He knelt. Again. "I am not going to take you," he said. Isolde looked at his wounded hand, then at hers, then at Selene. "I want to leave the white room." Selene nodded. "Then we leave." Above them, the alarm changed tone. Louder. More urgent. Livia shouted in the earpiece, finally returned: "Exterior movement! The Lily container is in the east wing. I repeat: the container is here. And it is being loaded." Althea, hand bleeding, found her smile again. "You have saved a name," she said. "How many bodies are you willing to lose for it?" Selene looked at Eden. Then Isolde. Then the staircase. The choice was there. Isolde or the container. One face or a crowd. The old method. Save one person by betraying another. This time, Selene answered before fear could. "We do not choose like that." She took Isolde's hand. Isolde did not pull it away. Eden positioned himself to the left. Not in front. To the left. And together, they ran toward the east wing.
Lily had just stopped being a scent. It was a cargo of living people. And it was leaving.
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