Chapter8

Celia's POV

I turned around slowly.

She was still there, both arms locked around my waist, her face pressed into the back of my coat. I stood there for three full seconds before I could make myself move, before I could make my hands do anything other than hang at my sides.

I crouched down and gently peeled her arms away, just enough to turn and face her.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were round, wide open, with the kind of unguarded expectation that kids stop having once someone disappoints them enough times. It hit me somewhere I wasn't prepared for—that look. Leonie used to look at me like that, back when she was small enough that I could carry her on one hip, back when I was still the fixed point in his world.

"I'm not your mommy," I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm not."

The light in her eyes dimmed. Not out—dimmed, like someone turned a dial down just one notch. She didn't cry. She didn't let go, either. Instead she pulled herself closer, tucking her face against my shoulder, and the weight of her settled against me like she'd already decided she wasn't going anywhere.

I didn’t push her away. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the thought of Leonie, or maybe it was because no one had ever leaned on me like this before.

"Okay," I said quietly. "Can you tell me where you live? I'll take you home."

Nothing.

"Your address," I tried again, softer. "Do you know it?"

Still nothing. She just stood there, holding on.

I exhaled and straightened up, pulling out my phone. If she wouldn't talk, I'd call someone who could help. My thumb had already unlocked the screen when I caught it—a slight movement at the corner of her mouth. A tiny, reluctant compression of her lips, like she was doing the math on something and didn't love the answer she was getting.

Then her hand moved. She reached into the collar of her shirt and pulled out a thin silver chain, looping it over her head with the careful deliberateness of someone who'd done this before but really didn't want to do it right now. The pendant was a small oval tag, metal, both sides engraved.

I leaned in close to read it under the streetlight.

An address on the Upper East Side. A phone number. And a name.

Ivy.

I said it out loud. "Ivy."

She glanced up at me for exactly one second—a quick, assessing look—and then her gaze dropped to the flower bed beside us, where she seemed to find something in the mulch worth studying.

I dialed the number.

It rang six times. Seven. Eight. The line stayed open on the other end, hollow and indifferent, and I stood there listening to it with a feeling I recognized the way you recognize a smell from childhood. Of course. I'd seen this before—the carefully prepared child, the emergency contact tag, the contingency plan that covered every scenario except the one where the adults actually showed up.

The monitoring here is about as thorough as Arthur's attention to me. Forms filled out, systems in place, fundamentally empty.

I hung up, put my phone away, and held out my hand.

"Come on, Ivy. I'll take you home myself."

She looked at my hand, then at my face, doing that same quiet calculation. Then she put her fingers into mine. They were cool and thin, the tips faintly gritty with dried dirt from the flower bed. Not so different from my own hands on most days.

We got a cab heading uptown. Ivy sat close to me from the start, that deliberate distance children sometimes keep when they're deciding whether to trust you. It narrowed as the cab moved north, a centimeter at a time, until her head tipped sideways and came to rest against my arm.

She was asleep before I noticed it happening. No announcement, no warning—just a gradual slackening, the weight of her skull growing heavier against my sleeve.

Her fingers were still wrapped around mine. Even asleep, she hadn't let go.

I looked down at her. My arm had gone numb, yet I didn’t pull my hand away, afraid I would wake her.

When was the last time you felt someone staying with you like this, quietly? I wondered suddenly to myself.

Six years. For six years, all I’d heard was “You should,” “You owe me,” “You said you would,” “You promised.” Now here, in the back of this moving taxi, there was nothing expected of me, nothing I had to give. No talk of obligations or debts. Just quiet companionship. Her five small fingers pressed into my palm, and only then did I feel so clearly the difference between the two.

I didn't say anything. I didn't move. I just let her hold on and felt the warmth of it travel up my arm and sit somewhere in my chest, quiet and strange and more than I'd expected.

The cab stopped in front of an iron gate. Gothic stonework, ivy climbing the fence—not the girl, the plant—and a family crest cast into the metalwork at the top. I took a breath, recalibrated, and got out with Ivy half-awake in my arms.

I pressed the buzzer. The gate opened fast.

The man who came toward us was in his fifties, his jacket perfectly pressed, every hair in place. When he saw Ivy's face against my shoulder, something in his expression broke open—quietly, without sound, just his jaw going tight and his eyes going wet and his lips pressing together like he was holding something in by force.

"Thank God," he said, his voice unsteady. "Miss, thank you. We searched everywhere after she disappeared—the whole block, the park—if the master comes home and finds her gone, we'd all be—" He stopped himself. He didn't need to finish. The silence after said enough.

He reached out to take her.

Ivy's arms tightened around my neck. She'd been half-awake, barely present, but the moment his hands came close she went rigid and pressed herself deeper into me, her fingers knotting in the fabric at my shoulder. No words. Just refusal, complete and immediate.

I was at a loss, trying to figure out how to get Ivy to let go, when a voice came from behind me.

"Ivy. Let go." A steady, unhurried voice, carrying an air of authority that needed no explanation.

Her fingers tightened once, a last hard grip, like she was testing how much she could hold before she had to give in. Then, slowly, one finger at a time, she released her grip and let the butler lift her away.

Once Ivy was taken from my arms, a wave of relief washed over me. Curious about the man who had spoken, I straightened and turned around.

He stood a few feet away, one hand tucked into his jacket pocket, the top button of his collar undone — a disheveled looseness, like he’d rushed here and hadn’t had time to fix himself. But his gaze was clear and focused, sharp and steady. This was the man who’d helped me back in the hallway.

He glanced at me, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly — there was a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said.