Steven starts talking like he has been waiting for permission, like the truth has been pacing inside him for years and all it needed was the right moment to tear free, and I stand there in the cell with the silver knife still warm in my hand and listen because I need to hear it from his mouth, not infer it from looks and silences and half answers anymore.
“She didn’t die randomly,” he says hoarsely, breath hitching as he shifts against the stone, “your mother was holding part of it.”
My stomach drops, not because I did not already suspect it, but because hearing it confirmed lands with a different kind of weight, heavier and sharper, like a blade finally finding bone.
“She was part of the seal,” he continues, eyes unfocused now as if he is seeing something else entirely, “not metaphoric
