Her phone had been dead from rain and time. Her lipstick had still been there. Tissues. Safety pins. A tiny sewing kit. A hotel key card. A receipt for champagne she hadn’t wanted and had bought anyway because Bree had said it was festive.
No blood or torn dress. No beautiful blue heels, which Bree considered personally offensive, because if there was one thing Amelia would not do, even in a crisis, was abandon designer shoes without a formal process.
For months, there had been nothing. No bank activity. No passport use. No hospital records. And no body. No trace of Amelia after that storm-soaked Saturday at Ashcombe Castle.
Deck had canceled their honeymoon before Bree had even thought to ask. He’d stood in the vestibule of the inn with his phone in one hand, his wedding ring still shining on his finger, his face pale and hard in that way men got when they were trying very badly not to fall apart.
Bree would remember her wedding forever as the happiest and saddest day of her life.
Happy because she had married Deck, the ridiculous, steady, broad-shouldered love of her life.
Devastating because Amelia, who was not only her cousin but the sister life had forgotten to give her, had disappeared between champagne and dinner.
Some days Bree could almost convince herself Amelia had stepped into a fairy ring near the ruined tower.
It was stupid. Childish. A thought Amelia would have dismantled with a spreadsheet, three sources, and one arched brow over the top of her sunglasses.
But deep down, in the little locked room of Bree’s heart where logic had been asked to remove its shoes and wait outside, she believed it.
Amelia had stepped into a fairy ring. Or through a storm. Or into whatever old, strange door lived in ruined towers near ancient swords. And now she was happy somewhere with a hot fairy prince who wore armor and looked excellent brooding beside the battlements.
Because the alternatives were too awful to think about. And because if anyone could fall into an ancient legend and immediately improve the household management, water supply, and emotional literacy of the local male population, it was Amelia.
Then Linda found the blog post. Not on a reputable academic site, because apparently the universe had a flair for chaos, but buried in a local history blog with an orange banner, six pop-up ads, and a comments section in which three people argued about whether a nearby priory had ghosts or only bad plumbing.
The post was about the newly restored chapel effigies at Ashcombe.
One image. That was all it took. A stone lady lying beside a stone lord. Her hands folded in prayer. Her gown falling in carved folds from narrow shoulders. Her face worn soft by centuries, but enough remained. A pointed chin. A small mouthtilted as if she were privately amused. Hair carved loose beneath the veil, spilling in waves over the pillow beneath her head.
And on the inscription, newly cleaned by some cheerful conservation volunteer who had no idea what kind of wrecking ball she had taken to Bree’s life, were the words:
AMELIA, LADY ASHCOMBE
BELOVED WIFE OF THOMAS, LORD ASHCOMBE
Bree and Linda had booked their flights that night.
Now they stood before the effigy. The stone couple lay beneath an arched recess in the north wall. The lord was broad-shouldered even in death, carved in mail with a sword along one side. His face hadn’t survived as well as hers, but enough remained to suggest a stern brow, a strong jaw, and very good hair.
Beside him, the lady’s stone hand rested near his. Not touching. Almost.
Linda stepped forward. Amelia’s mother was not a woman who fell apart. She was compact, with silver-brown hair cut to her chin, a cardigan buttoned wrong because her hands had trembled in the hotel that morning, and sneakers still damp from the walk across the bailey. She had spent the last year folding grief into tasks. Calls to detectives, embassies, hospitals. Calls to Bree when neither of them could sleep and there was nothing new to say, so they said nothing together.
Now she reached out, then stopped before her fingers touched the stone.
Museum rules.
Amelia would have approved.
“She hated being late,” Linda said.
Bree gave a watery laugh.
“She was always ten minutes early,” Linda continued, staring at the carved face. “For school. For work. Even Thanksgiving. She’d stand in my kitchen with the rolls in one hand and aschedule in the other, telling me when the turkey needed to come out.”
“She made me a wedding timeline,” Bree said. “For a wedding I planned in a week.”
“She would.”
