The crystal in her hands had been a wedding gift, she remembered, from a great-aunt on her own side of the family — one of the few things in that entire mansion that had actually come from her, rather than through the money she’d hidden.

It seemed fitting, somehow, that it was the thing lying broken on the floor while Lenette lectured her about ordinariness.

Her husband stood near the kitchen doorway, scrolling on his phone.

Lucius Beckworth wore a midnight-blue tuxedo, handmade shoes, and the silver watch Isadora had given him for their third anniversary — the same watch he told interviewers he had bought himself, after his first successful development.

Isadora had never corrected him.

She had let him keep that small lie, along with a great many larger ones, because correcting people had never been how she moved through the world.