Maria slipped into her bedroom and closed the door behind her, pressing her back against the wood. Her breath came shallow and quick.
"Why on earth is my father calling me?" she whispered to the empty room, pressing a hand to her chest as if she could still the panic thrumming there.
She pushed off the door, and her steps faltered. An envelope lay on her nightstand—creamy paper, unsealed, waiting. She frowned and reached for it, fingers just brushing the edge when the intercom crackled to life.
"Mom. Can you get back down here? Real quick." Adrian's voice came through flat and strange. No warmth. No anger. Just something tight and unreadable.
Downstairs, Star sat at the breakfast table wrapped in the crimson mantle like it was a bathrobe, an enormous smile spreading across her face between bites of food. She was ravenous, and she didn't care that every set of eyes in the room was fixed on her as if she'd grown a second head.
"Okay, I get that I'm beautiful, but you don't need to stare at me like that," she teased, catching Adrian's gaze.
He stood frozen near the corner of the room, having just returned from the intercom. He hadn't meant to stare, but there was something about the way she ate—messy and eager and utterly unselfconscious—that made him forget to look away. She was, infuriatingly, adorable.
Maria descended the stairs and stopped mid-step. Her eyes found the crimson fabric first, then the girl wearing it, then the faces of her family watching the girl wear it.
She tried to turn back just in case someone didn't see her. But too late. Christine had already seen her.
"Oh, Maria, come sit!" the older woman called out, her grin impossibly wide. "Star was just telling us how she found Bonita's mantle in the food storage."
The name hit the room like a slap. Maria walked forward stiffly, every nerve screaming, but she smoothed her expression before she reached the table.
Star kept eating.
"Honey," Maria said, her voice honeyed and warm, settling into the chair beside Star with a look of tender concern. "Where did you say you found that?"
"Bonita never did believe in tradition," Maria continued before anyone could answer, sighing theatrically. "Maybe she thought hiding it in storage was a clever idea."
Star looked at her, and something in her face soured. She set her spoon down just long enough for the pause to land.
"Yeah," Star said, a curious smile playing at her lips. "It looked really well hidden. And the servants told me there's quite a story behind it." She scooped another spoonful of food into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "I'd love to hear more. It's really interesting."
Saint Stark pushed back from the table, his walking stick trembling in his grip. "I'll tell you about it. But first—Bonita has to answer to me." He tried to stand fully, but his legs betrayed him. He swayed.
Star was beside him in an instant, her hand touching his arm to steady him.
And then something moved.
It coursed through Saint Stark like warm water through frozen pipes—a surge, a current, a strange unwinding deep in his chest. He stared at her, stunned, caught in the light of her hazel eyes, flecked with gold.
"I'm so sorry, sir," Star said, pulling her hand back, her brow furrowing.
"What's wrong, Saint?" Christine's voice cut through, sharp with concern.
Everyone was looking now. The old man stood frozen, his mouth slightly open. Then his body seized with a cough—the deep, racking cough that had haunted him for weeks, the one that always came with blood. He fumbled for his handkerchief, pressed it to his mouth, and waited for the familiar copper taste.
Nothing.
He pulled the cloth away and stared. White. Clean.
"That's weird," he whispered. And then he turned and walked out of the room, his cane tapping a slow, bewildered rhythm against the floor.
Star looked at Christine, her face stricken. "I didn't do anything, I swear—"
"It's okay, sweetheart," Christine said, but her eyes were not kind. They slid to Maria like a blade finding its sheath. "I know what happened. And I think Maria can explain it."
Maria's mask slipped for a fraction of a second. "What are you looking at me like that for, Mother? Bonita is the one who discarded your precious mantle. Not me."
She stood, a flush rising on her neck, and walked away toward the stairs.
Adrian said nothing. He didn't need to. The space between his grandmother and his mother was electric with something old and unspoken, and he had no map for it. Instead, he moved behind Star and gently lifted the mantle from her shoulders, folding the heavy fabric with care.
"Morning, Starks! Bonita is back!"
Bonita swept into the living room, her voice announcing her before her body did. She was dressed in fresh gray sweats and a matching hoodie, her hair still damp. She looked impossibly refreshed for someone who had spent the night sprawled on a yacht sofa.
Maria stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned.
"Where are you coming from?" Adrian asked, arms crossing over his chest.
Bonita slid into a chair and signaled for breakfast with a lazy wave. "From Lucian's yacht," she said, letting the words drip off her tongue with a sly, deliberate smile. Her eyes caught the red fabric draped over the back of a chair, and her brow furrowed—but before she could speak, Maria descended on her.
"Bonita Stark!" Her mother's voice was a whip crack. "Do you have any idea what that mantle means to this family? And you hid it? What did you think would happen—that we simply wouldn't find out?"
Adrian, unblinking, added his own question. "Did you sleep with Lucian?"
The room was a collision of accusations. Bonita raised both hands in surrender, her eyes wide.
"Everyone just calm down," she said, her voice rising to meet the chaos. "First of all, yes, I said I slept at Lucian's—update your English. Second—" She pointed at the mantle, and now her voice carried a tremor she couldn't quite hide—"I don't understand any of this, because I made the mantle into a dress. Or does it do some kind of magic switch-back to its original form?"
A heavy silence fell.
"Does it, Grandma?" Bonita asked, her bravado cracking. "Does it do that?"
Christine leaned forward, her sharp eyes narrowing. "What do you mean you made it into a dress, Boni?"
Star leaned close to Adrian, her voice barely a whisper. "Maybe I should go upstairs. Take a shower. You need one too."
He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on his mother.
"So there are two mantles?" Bonita pressed on, the questions spilling out now, rapid-fire. "Is it because Star is pregnant with Adrian's baby? I thought mantles only came to females—how is she compatible with it? And she's not even a Stark—"
"That's a fascinating theory," Christine cut in, her voice deceptively light. "But the mantle can't be torn. So how exactly did you make yours into a dress?"
Maria winced. A sharp, theatrical gasp of pain. She clutched her side, doubling slightly, and Adrian was at her elbow in two strides.
"I need to go to the hospital," Maria breathed, her voice strained. "My doctor called earlier. I'm getting worse."
But Christine rose from her chair, her palms flat on the dining table, her body trembling with something far older than anger.
"Maria is avoiding the obvious," she said, each word a stone dropped into still water. "And I am tired." She looked at her daughter-in-law with undisguised contempt. "She doesn't have cancer. And there is a chance—a very real chance—that Bonita is not David's daughter."
The air left the room.
Saint Stark's voice came from the stairway entrance, cold as marble, carrying the full weight of a family patriarch who had finally stopped looking away. "Well, that explains a great deal. When Bonita touched me to heal my chronic cough, nothing happened. Not a thing."
He stepped fully into the room, his cane steady now, his gaze pinned on Maria.
"And I just got off the phone with Darius. The family has been called back from the farm project." He paused, letting the weight of it settle. "Seems we have quite a bit to discuss."