Chapter 4

The heavy oak doors of the Marchetti manor had barely clicked shut behind them before Sophie pulled her arm free from Eloise's grip.

The night air was freezing, biting through their coats as they stood on the gravel driveway waiting for the town car.

The headlights of the car cut through the dark, illuminating the stark lines of Sophie's face.

Her dark eyes were wide, burning with a mixture of humiliation and sudden, sharp betrayal.

"Did you mean it?" Sophie asked, her voice cracking in the cold wind.

Eloise turned to look at her daughter. "Sophie—"

"Did you mean it?" Sophie repeated, stepping back, her voice rising. "Inside that room, in front of all of them, when he asked what score you expected... you said zero. You told him I was going to fail before I even sat down at a desk."

"I told him what the rules of his game required," Eloise said quietly, stepping closer.

"No!" Sophie's voice broke, the control she had maintained all afternoon finally shattering. "You didn't just play his game; you gave him the weapon to use against me! Everyone laughed, Mom! Even Holly looked at me like I was already beaten. Why would you say that? Why do you always decide what I'm going to lose before I even get a chance?"

Eloise froze.

It was not the first time Sophie had accused her of deciding too much.

Eloise had chosen her school, screened her friends, canceled sleepovers without explanation, and checked every car before Sophie entered it.

Eloise had called it safety. Sophie had lived it as a locked door.

Eloise reached for her daughter, then stopped before touching her.

"May I explain?" Eloise asked.

Sophie wrapped both arms around herself. "You can explain. That doesn't mean I'll agree."

"I learned that tomorrow's test is not secure," Eloise said, her voice dropping into a fierce, absolute stillness.

"From whom?" Sophie asked, narrowing her eyes.

"I can't tell you."

"Then how am I supposed to trust you?"

"Because a completed paper gives them something they can alter. A blank paper gives them nothing," Eloise said, locking her eyes onto her daughter's. "I want you to leave a blank page. Not because you can't answer the questions, Sophie. Because the page they give you is a lie. Trust me."

Sophie stared at her mother, searching the deep, exhausted lines of Eloise's face.

"If I leave it blank, you tell me everything before the results are announced," Sophie said firmly.

Eloise hesitated.

Sophie's face closed. "That hesitation is my answer."

"I'll tell you what I know," Eloise said quickly.

"Not what you think I can handle. What you know."

Eloise nodded. "Agreed."

"And no more plans about me without me."

Eloise could not promise that one easily. That was why Sophie waited.

Finally, Eloise met her daughter's gaze and said, "No more plans about you without you."

Sophie pulled back slowly, arms still wrapped around herself against the cold.

She didn't say yes, but she didn't walk away either.

Twenty miles away, inside the opulent master suite of the main Marchetti estate, another mother and daughter faced a very different kind of silence.

The room smelled of expensive night-blooming jasmine and the dry musk of a wood fire.

Elissa sat at her vanity, unclasping her diamond earrings one by one, watching Holly through the gilded mirror.

Holly sat on the edge of the velvet bed, staring down at the heavy gold ring shining on her right index finger.

It was too big; she had to keep her finger curled inward to prevent it from sliding off.

"You look troubled, sweetheart," Elissa said softly, turning around in her chair. "Tomorrow is just an academic test. You've had the best private tutors in Manhattan. You know those answers by heart."

Holly looked up, her eyes troubled. "It's not the test, Mom."

"Then what is it?"

"Did you see the way Sophie looked at me?" Holly whispered, her voice tightening. "She didn't even look angry at me today. She just looked... tired. Like she knew something we didn't."

Elissa's smile faltered for a fraction of a second, but she smoothed it over instantly, gliding across the carpet to sit beside her daughter.

She took Holly's cold hands in her own.

"Sophie is just like her mother—defeated before she even begins," Elissa murmured, pressing a reassuring kiss to Holly's knuckles. "Your father chose the location. He approved the proctors. He has done everything necessary to make sure this family gets the right result."

Elissa reached into her designer handbag resting on the nightstand and removed a cream envelope.

It was thin, sealed, and marked only with Holly's initials.

She slid it across the coverlet.

Holly did not take it. "What is that?"

"Something that makes tomorrow less uncertain," Elissa said smoothly.

"Is it allowed?"

Elissa's expression did not change. "Allowed by whom?"

"Does Dad know?"

"Your father knows what result he expects."

Elissa placed the envelope beside the heir ring on Holly's nightstand. "Take it with you. Whether you open it is your decision."

Holly stared at the cream envelope as if it were a snake coiled on the wood.

The next morning, St. Agnes Academy stood silent under a pale winter sun.

At nine o'clock sharp, the heavy oak doors of the examination hall closed.

Inside, the room was drafty and smelled of floor wax and old chalk.

Three council-appointed proctors sat at the front, their faces blank and unreadable.

Sophie sat at a wooden desk near the tall, arched windows.

Before her lay a thick booklet of test questions.

The first problem asked her to compare two quadratic functions.

Sophie saw the solution almost immediately.

Her pencil moved toward the answer box before she stopped herself.

She thought of her mother's words in the driveway: A blank paper gives them nothing.

Sophie let out a slow, quiet breath.

She opened her pencil case, laid her number-two pencil down on the wood, and pushed the test booklet away.

She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and stared straight ahead at the blank wall, leaving every single line entirely empty.

Across the aisle, Holly heard the soft scrape of wood against wood.

She looked over. Sophie's pencil lay inside her closed pencil case. Her answer sheet was untouched.

Holly's hand moved toward the pocket of her skirt.

The cream envelope crackled beneath her fingers.

She could hear Elissa's voice from the night before: Whether you open it is your decision.

At the front of the room, one of the proctors stood and began walking down the aisle.

Holly pulled the envelope halfway from her pocket.

Then she looked at Sophie's blank page.