Son of a bitch.
She’s already twenty feet away, stride too casual. Two more kids peel off in opposite directions. Smooth choreography. My own con, turned on me.
I perfected that move when Rome ruled the world. Bump, lift, scatter. Now it’s cost me more than I could have made in ten lifetimes back then.
Gone: not just today’s bills. Ten, maybe twenty grand: some of it mine, most of it the cash Laura pressed intomy hand before I left Missouri, saying it was only a fragment of my share of theFortuna’sgold. I took the money but shoved back the credit card with my name embossed on it—plastic feels too much like chains. Guess I needed to prove to myself I could stand on my own.
Shit, that roll was my freedom. They even took my subway card, and the twenty I owed my roommates for groceries.
The October air cuts sharp as I shoulder my bag and stride off. The Brooklyn couch I’ve been crashing on feels like debt, not freedom. I won’t crawl back broke and owing.
The Upper East Side blurs by in gray stone and sharp suits. Then I see it: green. Real green. A wall of trees where there shouldn’t be any.
I find a gap in the wrought iron wide enough for a thief who knows where to look. On the other side: manicured paths, silence thick enough to feel staged.
Deeper in, a cottage waits. Roses climbing the walls, leaded glass gone wavy with age. Too perfect, too still. I circle once. No lights, no cameras. Inside: wilted flowers, fruit gone soft in a bowl, and a sweater draped like someone meant to come back and didn’t.
The door’s unlocked. Rich people forget the world has teeth.
Inside is a showpiece of wealth: antique furniture, a stocked kitchen, a bed that looks like sin and salvation. And yet the air feels wrong—like whoever belonged here stepped out weeks ago and never returned.
I should leave. Find a shelter. Swallow pride. But exhaustion wins.
Just a few hours, I tell myself, sinking into sheets softer than anything since Missouri. Rest, then move.
As sleep drags me under, one thought rises, stubborn as a coin refusing to vanish: Goddess Fortuna—if you’ve got any mercy left, spare a little for a thief who’s run out of luck.
Chapter Two
Charity
The grandfather clock in the main hallway chimes ten times as I make my way through the mansion, carrying my breakfast tray back to the kitchen. Mother and Father finished eating an hour ago—they’re early risers, unlike me—and I can hear the murmur of Father’s voice from his study as he takes his first business call of the day.
Twenty-seven years, and the hallway outside Grace’s room still feels like a museum corridor — untouched, waiting, air heavy with a life interrupted. When I push the door open, the stillness is absolute. Her room isn’t frozen so much as curated: the neat canopy bed dressed in its white eyelet coverlet, the books aligned with impossible precision, everything arranged the way my mother decided it should stay.
Not a shrine. A story. One I was expected to finish.
Sometimes I wonder what she’d think of me. Whether we would have been friends, or if the years between us would have made us strangers sharing the same parents.
Don’t be morbid, Charity,I can hear Mother’s voice saying.Dwelling on such things isn’t healthy.
I continue toward the kitchen, my footsteps echoing against the marble floors. All these rooms were designed for entertaining dozens of guests, but they house only three people who barely speak to each other unless it’s about charity events or business obligations.
In the kitchen, I rinse my dishes in the enormous farmhouse sink. It’s one of the few domestic skills I’ve actually mastered. The kitchen staff would handle this if I asked, but sometimes I like the freedom of doing things myself. I told Mother and Father I wanted to spend some time in my cottage while I figure out the new piece that’s been giving me such a hard time. That isn’t exactly a lie. I’ve been stuck on my latest sculpture for weeks.
The cottage. Grace’s cottage, originally. Father had it built for her eighth birthday, a perfect fairy-tale playhouse where she could host tea parties or read in private. After she died, it sat empty for years until I discovered it during one of my wandering phases as a teenager. Now it’s become my retreat when the mansion feels too suffocating, which is most of the time.
I gather supplies from the pantry—coffee, some fruit, a loaf of bread that’s probably too artisanal for its own good—and load everything into a wicker basket. The October air is crisp as I step out the back door, and I pull my cardigan tighter around my shoulders.
The grounds stretch for nearly three acres, most of it wooded to provide privacy from our neighbors. Father’s great-grandfather designed the landscaping himself, creating winding paths through old-growth trees that make you forget you’re in Manhattan. It’s one of the few things about this place that doesn’t feel like a museum.
As I walk the familiar path to the cottage, I try not to think about the conversation I overheard last nightbetween my parents. They were in Father’s study with the door closed, but voices carry in this house.
"The Birches are hosting a fundraiser next month for literacy programs," Mother had said. "They specifically requested Charity’s attendance."
"Of course they did." Father’s tone held a familiar note of resignation. "She photographs well."
"She needs to be more… engaged. The Whitman girl just announced her betrothal to that young man from the Robeson family. Charity is twenty-five, Robert. People notice these things."
