The word barely made it past her lips.
"Yes, dear." The woman took Mae's face in both hands, brushing her cheeks. "You're burning up. What have you done to yourself?"
Mae's world tilted. This isn't real. She died. I watched her die.
Her legs gave out anyway.
She collapsed into her mother's arms and stopped fighting it. Every emotion she had swallowed broke through at once, ugly and uncontrolled. "Mom. Mom, I missed you. I thought I'd never see you again."
Her mother held her, rocking slightly, one hand moving slow circles on her back, the way she used to when Mae was small. "Shh. You're safe. You're home."
Then a voice, cold and clipped, cut across the moment. "What is this display?" Mae lifted her head.
A man stood a few feet away. Dark cape, gold trim, posture carved from stone. Arms behind his back. Eyes unreadable.
Her breath left her body.
"...Dad?"
She didn't think. She ran straight to him and buried her face in his chest, arms locking around him, holding on like he might dissolve.
"Why did you leave me?" Her voice broke against the fabric of his cloak. "Do you have any idea what I went through? What I survived alone because you weren't there?" Her fists tightened. "I hate you for leaving me. I hate you."
Melissa went rigid. Her mother made a sharp sound. Then the man spoke.
"Who are you?" Mae's arms loosened. "...What?"
"I have one daughter," he said, each word slow and deliberate. "Her name is not Mae."
His hands came up and removed her arms from his body. Carefully. Like she was something he didn't want to touch. Mae stumbled back. The warmth that had just filled her chest caved in completely, replaced by something colder than anything she had felt all night.
"Dad. It's me." Her voice was barely audible anymore. "It's Mae."
He looked at her the way you look at a stranger. "Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter?"
The silence that followed had teeth.
Mae stood very still, breathing hard, her whole body trembling. Then something in her face settled. Not peace. The opposite. The kind of stillness that comes after you've understood something you can't undo.
She stepped back from all of them.
"I think I'm losing my mind," she said quietly. Her lips pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "So just let me be. You're not my mother. He's not my father." She swallowed. "I hope you find your real daughter."
She turned and walked toward the gates before anyone could see what was happening behind her eyes.
"Marianne!" Helen called after her, voice fracturing. Mae didn't look back.
Helen rounded on Lawrence the second she was gone.
"How could you say that to her?" Her voice shook with fury. "She's our daughter. Your own flesh and blood. You couldn't even pretend—"
"She is not our daughter." Lawrence's voice didn't rise. Melissa, who knew better than to speak, spoke anyway. "Your Highness... what if she simply lost her memories?"
Lawrence laughed once. Humorless. "I know what Marianne looks like." His eyes stayed on the path Mae had disappeared down. "That woman is not her."
He turned. "Marshal."
From the far end of the colonnade, a man emerged. Broad, military black and red, the king's insignia on his chest, the kind of face that gave nothing away.
"Yes, Your Highness?"
"Find Marianne. And make sure that the woman is seen by no one. Not a word of this leaves the palace."
The Marshal nodded and disappeared into the dark.
Lawrence walked away without looking back, his footsteps echoing across the marble like something final.
Helen stood alone, knees barely holding, staring at the empty path.
"His daughter just ran barefoot into the city," she whispered, "and he didn't even flinch."
She turned to Melissa. "Go after her. Don't let her out of your sight."
Melissa was already moving.
Helen looked up at the clouded sky, her hands pressed together at her chest.
"Please," she whispered. "Keep her safe."