I should’ve gone straight to my room.

Should’ve pretended I didn’t see the way Vivienne’s mask cracked in the car, how her perfectly maintained composure had developed hairline fractures that promised a complete collapse. Should’ve kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself and let her rebuild whatever wall she needed to survive in this house.

Instead, I stood in the driveway like an idiot, watching her climb out of the Range Rover with movements that were too sharp, too controlled. The kind of control that people use when their world is tilting sideways and they’re desperate to convince everyone—including themselves—that gravity still works the way it’s supposed to.

Sabrina killed the engine. Stretched with feline grace, her vampire cape settling around her shoulders like it belonged there. Her purple eyes found mine in the darkness, and something in her expression made my chest constrict in ways that had nothing to do with the crisp October air.

"She needs space," Sabrina said quietly, her voice carrying that particular quality she got when she was being prophetic instead of just observant. "Or she needs the opposite of space. I haven’t decided which yet."

"Helpful."

"I try." The ghost of a smile touched her lips, there and gone before I could be sure I’d seen it.

Cassidy was already halfway to the front door, her cape billowing behind her like she was storming off to commit murder. Probably planning mine, considering the looks she’d been shooting me during the car ride. The whole trip back, she’d been silent, which was infinitely worse than her usual threats and creative suggestions about where I should shove various objects. Silent Cassidy meant she was thinking, and thinking Cassidy was the kind of dangerous that started wars or ended them, depending on her mood.

Harlow lingered by the car, her fingers worrying at her costume’s elaborate bow, undoing and retying it in nervous repetition. Her usual brightness had dimmed to something softer, sadder, like someone had turned down her internal dimmer switch to a more manageable setting.

"She dreamed about their dad," Harlow said, her voice barely above a whisper. "She does that sometimes. Wakes up crying and pretends it never happened."

My throat went tight. "Does she know you know?"

"No." Harlow looked toward the house, where Vivienne’s silhouette passed by a lit window on the second floor, moving with purpose even in distress. "She’d hate it if she did. Vulnerability isn’t in the Vivienne Valentine brand guidelines."

"That’s..." I searched for words that could adequately capture how fundamentally screwed up that was. Came up empty.

"That’s our mother’s training." Harlow’s smile was small, carrying the weight of too much understanding for someone who should still be worried about homework and boy bands. "We’re not supposed to need things. Or want things. Or feel things that can’t be monetized."

Iris appeared at my elbow like she’d materialized from the shadows. When did she even get out of the car? My sister had developed ninja-level stealth skills since we’d moved to this neighborhood, probably from years of avoiding our mother’s boyfriends and their wandering hands.

"You’re all terrible at following those rules," my sister observed, her tone carrying that particular fourteen-year-old smugness that suggested she’d figured out secrets the adults were still pretending didn’t exist. "Especially when it comes to him."

She pointed at me with the kind of accusatory finger-pointing that belonged in courtrooms and intervention scenarios.

Harlow laughed, the sound watery but genuine, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. "Yeah. We really are."

Sabrina drifted past me toward the house, moving like smoke through the darkness, all fluid motion and careful silence. She paused at the foot of the manor steps, glanced back over her shoulder with an expression that was equal parts knowing and concerned.

"Vivienne won’t ask for help. She never does." Her voice was soft, almost gentle, the tone she reserved for delivering uncomfortable truths. "But she left the Archive unlocked. I checked."

Then she was gone, disappearing through the front door with the kind of exit that left more questions than answers hanging in the air like morning fog.

"The Archive?" I looked at Harlow, who was now chewing on her lower lip in a way that suggested this conversation was heading somewhere I wouldn’t like.

"The big closet where they keep all the expensive samples and designer pieces." Harlow twisted her fingers together, a nervous habit that was so unlike her usual confident energy it made my stomach perform an uncomfortable dropping motion. "Vivienne goes there when she’s upset. When everything feels too overwhelming and she needs to remember what she’s supposed to be working toward."

"That sounds incredibly depressing."

"It is." Harlow’s eyes met mine, and for a moment I could see past her carefully maintained cheerfulness to something tired and worried underneath. "But it’s her safe place. The only one she’ll admit to having."

Perfect. So I had two choices: go to my room and let Vivienne deal with whatever emotional breakdown she was having alone, like a sensible person who understood boundaries and professional relationships, or track her down in some vault full of clothes worth more than my cumulative life earnings and probably make everything infinitely worse through my mere presence.

I was going to make everything worse.

Obviously.

Because I was apparently an idiot who couldn’t leave well enough alone, who kept touching hot stoves just to confirm that yes, fire still burned and yes, I was still capable of making catastrophically poor decisions when pretty girls were involved.

"Which way?" I asked, the words coming out before my brain could mount a coherent protest.

Harlow’s entire face lit up like I’d just announced Christmas was coming early this year. "West wing. Third floor. The double doors at the end of the hall with the gold handles that probably cost more than most people’s cars."

"You’re not coming?"

"This isn’t my thing to fix." She touched my arm, squeezed once with fingers that were still warm from the car’s heated seats. "It’s yours."

Then she skipped toward the house, leaving me standing in the driveway with Iris, who was giving me a look that suggested she knew exactly how this night was going to end and she was already judging my life choices with the harsh precision that only little sisters could achieve.

"Don’t," I warned her.

"I wasn’t going to say anything." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"You were thinking it really loud."

"I can’t help what you hear in your own paranoid brain." Iris grinned, too wide, too knowing, the expression of someone who’d watched me make the same mistakes over and over again and found it endlessly entertaining. "But if you’re going to find Vivienne, you should probably take this."