Chapter 2

I woke to the sound of rain drumming against the bedroom windows, each droplet like a tiny hammer against my skull. The headache had intensified overnight, a dull throbbing that seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat. I pressed my palms against my temples, trying to ease the pressure.

Something was wrong with my memory. I could remember yesterday's conversation with Ryker, the bitter taste of the elixir, the drive home. But when I tried to recall what I'd eaten for lunch yesterday, there was nothing. Just a blank space where the memory should have been.

The elixir was working faster than I'd anticipated.

I dragged myself out of bed, my legs unsteady beneath me. The house felt different in the gray morning light—emptier somehow, though I couldn't pinpoint why. Ryker's side of the bed was cold, the sheets barely disturbed. He'd probably spent the night with Lux.

I needed to pack. The text from Silvervale's representative had been clear—three days. I had to be ready when their convoy arrived, even if I wouldn't remember why I was leaving.

In the hallway, I pulled down the old leather suitcase from the top shelf of the linen closet. It was heavier than I remembered, and as I wrestled it free, something else tumbled down with it—a small cardboard box I'd never seen before.

Curious despite my pounding head, I picked it up. It was unmarked, sealed with clear tape. Inside, I could hear something soft rustling around. I carried both the suitcase and the mystery box to the guest room, thinking I'd have more space to organize there.

The guest room had always been our catch-all space—exercise equipment, seasonal decorations, boxes of old research papers. But as I stepped inside, something felt off. The air smelled different, sweeter somehow. Like baby powder and lavender.

I set the suitcase on the bed and was about to open it when I noticed the closet door was slightly ajar. I didn't remember leaving it open. In fact, I rarely used this closet at all.

When I pulled the door wide, my breath caught in my throat.

Tiny clothes hung from miniature hangers in perfect rows. Soft yellow onesies, delicate white booties, impossibly small sweaters in pastel blues and pinks. At the bottom of the closet sat a wicker basket filled with receiving blankets, each one softer than silk. And there, nestled among the blankets like a precious treasure, was a hand-knitted wolf pup toy with button eyes and a red ribbon around its neck.

My hands trembled as I reached for the toy. Attached to its ear was a small tag written in elegant script: 'For our little moon.' The date beneath it made my blood run cold: two months ago.

Two months ago, when I'd been told definitively that the silver poisoning had rendered me permanently infertile.

I sank onto the guest bed, the wolf pup clutched against my chest. None of this made sense. Why would there be baby clothes in our house? Why would someone write 'our little moon' as if...

As if there was going to be a baby.

With shaking fingers, I searched through the basket of blankets, looking for more clues. At the very bottom, wedged between two receiving blankets, I found it.

A black and white ultrasound photo.

The image was grainy, but unmistakable. A tiny form curled in the protective darkness of a womb, perfectly formed limbs visible in profile. At the top of the photo, a name was printed in clinical letters: Lux Thorne.

The date was from last month.

I stared at the image until my eyes burned, my mind racing to process what I was seeing. Lux wasn't dying of black thorn poisoning. She was pregnant.

My pharmaceutical training kicked in, memories of symptoms and treatments flooding back despite the elixir's interference. Nausea, fatigue, sensitivity to certain scents, the need for constant rest—everything Ryker had described as Lux's 'deteriorating condition' could easily be explained by pregnancy.

Black thorn poisoning was rare, almost mythical. I'd studied it extensively in my research, and the symptoms were nothing like what Ryker had described. The real symptoms were violent, unmistakable—convulsions, blackened veins, a distinctive bitter almond scent on the breath.

Lux had been lying. They both had been lying.

With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and began taking pictures. The ultrasound, the baby clothes, the date on the toy's tag. Evidence of the deception that had cost me my marriage, my home, my entire life.

My head pounded with each camera flash, the elixir making it harder to focus, but I forced myself to document everything. Future Wren would need to know the truth, even if present Wren was about to forget it.

I was carefully folding the blankets back into the basket when I heard it—laughter floating up from downstairs. Light, musical laughter that definitely didn't belong to Ryker.

Lux was here.

Panic shot through me like ice water. I couldn't let them find me up here, couldn't let them know I'd discovered their secret. Not when I had less than two days before my memories disappeared completely.

I quickly shoved the ultrasound photo into my jacket pocket and began replacing everything in the closet exactly as I'd found it. The baby clothes went back on their hangers, the blankets folded precisely in the basket.

The wolf pup toy was the last thing to go back. As I bent to place it gently among the blankets, my fingers brushed against something else—a small velvet box hidden beneath the wicker basket's lining.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I opened it. Inside was a ring. Not just any ring—an engagement ring with a stone so large and brilliant it could have been a small star. The band was inscribed with words that made my stomach lurch: 'To my Luna, my heart, my future.'

The sound of footsteps on the stairs made me slam the box shut and shove it back into its hiding place. I grabbed the wolf pup to return it to the basket, but my hands were shaking so badly that it slipped from my fingers and hit the hardwood floor with a soft thud.

I dropped to my knees, reaching for the toy just as the guest room door creaked open behind me.

'Wren,' came a voice like honey over broken glass. 'What are you doing in here?'

I froze, my fingertips barely brushing the wolf pup's soft fur. In the reflection of the closet's mirror, I could see Lux standing in the doorway. Her dark hair fell in perfect waves around her shoulders, and her skin had a glow that had nothing to do with illness and everything to do with new life growing inside her.

The smile on her face was slowly fading, replaced by something cold and calculating as her eyes moved from me to the open closet, to the wolf pup toy just inches from my reach.

'You're going through my things,' she said, and there was no question in her voice. Only a quiet, dangerous certainty.