Page 193 of Without a Trace
The room was dark and gold, all low lighting and heavy wood. A fire crackled in a stone hearth, too clean to be comforting. Books lined one wall. Weapons lined another. It smelled like cigars, cedar, and something sharp underneath. Power. Memory. Blood.
And then I saw him.
He didn’t look like a villain. That would’ve made this easier. He wasn’t cold or withered or monstrous. He looked… composed. Strong. Mid-forties, maybe. Hair blonde, short, no gray. Sharp jaw. Green eyes that looked exactly like mine.
My heart tried to crawl up my throat as he stood slowly. “Scarlett.”
Hearing my name in his voice was worse than hearing it from a stranger.
I stood there, letting the light cast shadows across his face.
He studied me like I was a painting he hadn’t seen in years. Not with softness. With precision. With hunger. Like he was trying to recognize the pieces of himself inside me.
“I thought you might come eventually,” he said.
I found my voice, brittle and shaking. “I was told you were dead.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“You let me think that.”
“No,” he said. “Your mother did.”
I blinked hard. “And you let her.”
“I made a deal to protect you. Your mother’s price was silence. I kept my distance so you could grow up without this world touching you.”
I laughed. It was hollow. Ugly. “That worked out real well.”
Something flickered in his expression, but it vanished quickly. “I didn’t expect you to come here with Brielle. That was… a surprise.”
“I didn’t come because of her. I came because I’m done being lied to.”
He stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “You look like her. But you’re mine.”
I flinched. “Don’t.”
“I mean that as a truth, not a claim. But we are the same, Scarlett. I can feel it. You’re not a girl anymore. You’resomething else now. And I’ve been waiting for you to remember that.”
I hated that part of me wanted to understand what he meant.
I looked around the room—this place of shadow and legacy and quiet control. “Why now? Why not come for me?”
“Because they would’ve killed you. The Hollow Order isn’t the only threat, and you’re not just anyone.”
My stomach dropped. “Then who am I?”
His voice was quiet. “You’re the bloodline they fear.”
I stared at him, my heart pounding like it wanted out of my chest. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you were never just a daughter,” he said. “You’re a prophecy. A return. A knot that was never supposed to tighten again.”
I didn’t understand. Not fully. But I felt it. In my skin. In the air around me. The way the floorboards creaked like they remembered me.
“The Codex called it the Severance Knot,” he continued. “A bond split across three bloodlines—one to burn, one to break, and one to bind.”
“You think I’m the one who binds them?” I asked, voice thin.
