Chapter 1
“You weren’t protecting the vase. You were protecting what was inside it.”
Lucinda stopped breathing.
That was answer enough.
I held the yellowed envelope in one hand.
Elisa clung to the back of my trouser leg with both arms.
Preston was still trying to push flower garlands off his shoulders beneath the collapsed wedding arch.
Nobody in the ballroom spoke.
I looked at the envelope.
My father’s handwriting.
SEBASTIAN — ONLY.
My pulse changed.
Father had been dead twelve years.
I looked at Lucinda.
“You knew this was here.”
“No.”
Too fast.
I tilted the envelope.
Her eyes followed it.
Not me.
It.
“Then why attack me for it?”
Preston answered from the floor.
“Because old family matters don’t belong in the middle of a wedding.”
Interesting.
Not:
Because it’s nothing.
Not:
Because it isn’t yours.
Old family matters.
He knew too.
I crouched beside Elisa.
“Are you hurt?”
She touched her cheek.
“Little.”
I kissed her forehead.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Her eyes moved toward the shattered porcelain.
“I broke Grandpa’s vase.”
“My father is not worried about the vase.”
That confused her.
Good.
Children should not understand why adults value objects over people.
I handed her to my sister and stood again.
Lucinda took one step toward me.
“Sebastian, please.”
First time I had ever heard her beg.
I broke the seal.
Inside was one folded page.
No money.
No photograph.
No list.
Just a letter.
The first line made every sound in the ballroom disappear.
Sebastian,
If you have a child after I am gone, never let the Custodian Table claim authority over that child.
I looked up.
Lucinda had gone white.
“What is the Custodian Table?”
Nobody answered.
Then my oldest capo, Vincent, whispered from behind me:
May you like
“Something your father ordered buried.”
Apparently someone had buried the order instead.
