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That nearly undoes him, I see it and so does she. Her face softens only after he turns away.

“Bring her home,” Elisa says to me.

Not asked. Ordered.

I nod. “If she is alive, I will.”

Her expression changes. “She is alive.”

I should agree without hesitation. I should be kind, but instead, my throat closes. Elisa steps closer.

“She is alive,” she repeats.

This time, I manage it.

“Yes.” A lie.

A prayer. Perhaps there is no difference.

By the third night, none of us sleeps. Edward tries for twelve minutes. Then he rises from the sofa in my library and begins pacing again. Alcott sits at the long table surrounded by maps, shipping ledgers, copied names, and dismantled pieces of a pistol he has rebuilt four times without reason.

I stand before the wall. My old murder board had been stored beneath dust and cowardice. I had put it away years ago after realizing the thing I hunted was not a man. It was a machine. A machine with ports and pedophile islands in the Caribbean. Estates in Spain, American hunting lodges, English manors, judges, governors, lords, merchants, newspapers, ships, banks, brothels, schools, orphanages, factories, and more money than any honest anger could outspend. Back then, I told myself I was being practical. I could kill a man, I could not kill an empire. So I folded the maps, put away the string, and buried the names.

Then Olive was taken, now the board covers half the library wall.

Red thread connects every location we know. Black thread marks disappearances and gold pins mark men who attended the gathering. White pins mark ships that left within twenty-four hours of the fire.

At the center, I pin her name.

Olive.

I stare at it for too long. Edward’s pacing stops behind me. “Do not put her there like she is evidence.” His voice is dangerous.

I turn. “She is the center.”

“She is not a case,” he insists.

“No,” I say. “She is the reason.”

That lands. Edward looks at the board, his face twists with grief, rage, and something like shame. “She should not be on a wall.”

“She should be here,” Alcott says quietly.

Silence follows. Then Edward kicks the side of the table and a stack of ledgers crashes to the floor.

Alcott surges to his feet. “Enough.”

Edward whirls on him. “Do not.”

“No, you do not.” Alcott’s voice sharpens. “You do not get to destroy the work because you cannot destroy him yet.”

Edward’s eyes go black, and I think he will strike his brother. Alcott thinks so too, but he steps closer anyway.

“I know you are afraid,” Alcott says.

Edward laughs cruelly. “Do you?”

“Yes,” he hisses.