“Come with me,” I said, and my voice gentled in a way I had half forgotten it could.

“Our mother is awake.

I think it’s time the three of us sat together.”

Chapter 22 — The Terrace at the Lake

Six months later, the early spring breeze swept across the wide stone terrace of the Lake House in Upstate New York, carrying the clean scent of blooming pines and the damp earth smell of the water below.

The estate was quiet in a way I had never known in thirty-four years of life.

There were no armed men pacing the perimeter.