Chapter 3 - The Sealed Nursery
At the end of the west corridor stood a white door covered with decades of paint. The key turned. Inside, the nursery remained perfectly preserved.
Two cribs stood beneath a faded moon mural. One was empty. Inside the other lay a recent photograph of Kira sleeping in the staff quarters.
On the back, someone had written, “Elena’s daughter has returned.”
Kira dropped the photograph. Ruth covered her mouth. Sebastian looked from the crib to Kira.
Then the nursery door slammed behind them. A speaker inside the wall crackled.
Arabella’s voice came through.
“Now that both heirs are together, I can finish what our family started.
” Gas poured through the moon-shaped vents.
Ruth whispered the truth she had protected for 30 years.
“Kiera, Sebastian is not the child I raised.”
She pointed at the second crib.
“You were.
And Sebastian suddenly realized the gas was meant for him.”
Gas rolled from the vents. Sebastian staggered toward the nursery door, but his legs failed beneath him.
Kiera caught his shoulder.
“Cover your mouth,” she said.
Ruth tore the lining from her coat and pressed strips of fabric into their hands.
“The gas reacts faster in men,” she warned.
“Arabella designed it for Sebastian.”
Kiera stared at her mother.
“What did you mean?
You said I was the child you raised.”
Ruth coughed and pointed toward the empty crib.
“Elena entrusted you to me.
Sebastian was raised under the Veil name, but you were the baby she begged me to hide.”
Sebastian forced himself upright.
“Then who am I?”
Before Ruth could answer, Arabella’s voice returned through the speaker.
“You are exactly what the Veils needed, a replacement son with no claim of his own.
” The vents released another burst.
Kiera searched the nursery. The moon mural covered the wall, but one painted star had been rubbed smooth by repeated touch.
May you like
She pressed it. A panel opened behind the second crib, revealing a narrow passage.
“Move.”
