Page 136 of Gravehouse

“It’s exactly what happened.”

Amélie clears her throat, and the room shuts up. “You’re both wasting breath arguing about timing.” She closes the laptop halfway, and the screen light goes out of her face. “Emeric doesn’t have a plan. He has an appetite. Everything he’s built for years exists to feed one thing, and it isn’t power.”

“Revenge,” my mother says.

“Revenge on me,” Amélie corrects. “You should understand what she is to him, so I’m going to start here. I didn’t know I was pregnant.”

Punk’s hands come off the keyboard.

“This should be good,” Luce grumbles, rolling her eyes.

Amélie continues. “To cut a very long story short, I was in a coma when I became pregnant, and during the birth.”

Everyone fucking stops, like the oxygen just got sucked out of the room. Too bad Ivy doesn’t know this already, and sure, this is most likely going to trigger another round of foreplay sparring before I hate-fuck her into forgiving me, but it was never my story to tell.

Not that she’s gonna give a fuck about that.

Amelie’s thumb moves once against the edge of the table. “When Nonna found me, I was still in the deep sleep, hooked up to monitors in his bedroom, but there was no sign of a child. She woke me, snuck me out, and didn’t look back. We didn’t know about Ivy until Nonna saw her on the yacht.” She blinks back the tears in her eyes. “She said the resemblance was just too much.”

“But—wait—” Luce shakes her head. “So you didn’t run off with Emeric and then leave her there to save yourself?”

I don’t know who the fuck Luce has been talking to, but that’s not the original story. My father, Emeric, and Aléia meant to bury the Monét name the second Emeric got the chance.

Amélie jerks back. “No, Lucinda. That was one of the many planted stories, but no. I imagine he was going to wake me when the time came, to train Ivy, which I would have, as I am obliged to do. He would have killed me the second she inherited the knowledge. He never wanted a child. He wanted a Monét. Our architecture, our relays, our intelligence lines—all of it, placed into a body he could aim.”

Luce blurts, “Why the hell would you date him in the first place?”

“I never dated him,” Amélie answers, fatigue thick in her tone.

“Luce.” I don’t raise my voice. “She’s innocent in this, all the way down. She didn’t have a choice, so drop it.”

Luce’s mouth closes.

“So it ruined his plans when Nonna took you,” Punk whispers, staring blankly at the wall. “And forced him to go through other avenues, but when none worked—” she waves her hand toward me. “—he decided she was worthless.”

“But Ivy still doesn’t have the knowledge or codes or whatever! Because she doesn’t even know Amélie is alive!” Damn. Luce is trying every way she can to not like Amelie, and I get it.

“Actually…” Amélie says, stopping us all. “She does. Nonna was a great teacher. Ivy herself doesn’t even know she has the knowledge. Nonna planted it in lessons, very slowly, weaving it carefully through her training. When the time is right,” she pauses, nodding at me, “she will have everything she needs.”

“What does thismean?” Jord’s hands go up. “I’ve known that girl since I was fourteen years old and nobody in this fucking room will tell me who she is other than the woman I fucking know! Which even during Plays, she wasneveranything different!”

“—because he hadn’t fucking triggered that part of her yet, Jord! Stay up!” Luce snaps.

“You know what?” He flips her off. “Fuck you. Fuck?—”

My phone chimes, and I dig it out of my pocket.

Unknown number. Just a video file, sitting there with a play button over a frozen frame of gray concrete.

I press play.

Ivy hangs from her wrists in the middle of a room I recognize before the camera even pans. Dovecrest. Her toes drag across the concrete, her head hanging forward, sweat pasting her hair to her face. She’s been up there too fucking long. A mechanical whine runs under the feed in cycles. Every spike seizes her whole body against the restraints.

“Ash?” Atlas sits up. “What is it?”

I can’t answer.

Camille slides in from the left and plants her hand against Ivy’s ribs, dragging it up while she speaks into Ivy’s ear. Can’t hear shit; the voices have been cut, leaving nothing but that frequency.