Chapter 29: The Mother in White
The music carried on—harp strings stitched to piano, soft and courtly, designed to make the air feel safer than it was.
Lucas moved like he belonged to the room now. Not as a guest, not even as a host. As something the room had been built around.
And across the ballroom, two specters in white watched him.
Not ghosts. Not quite.
But something close.
Misty Kilmer stood near the eastern arch, posture elegant in a gown that whispered of old money and older ambition. The white silk clung to her like an apology she never intended to make. Her neckline was modest, her jewelry deliberate, but none of it softened her. She wore the color not in reverence to the occasion but in mockery of it—white for innocence, for purity, for the kind of maternal grace she’d always sold but never owned.
Beside her stood Ophelia. Younger. Sharper. Clothed in a paler echo of the same dress, though where Misty wore her ambition like perfume, Ophelia wore hers like armor. Her hair curled just enough to be soft, her smile just crooked enough to seem shy. But her eyes followed Lucas like a hawk, calculating each gesture, each glance, each moment of distraction.
They had waited.
Watched him circulate. Watched the princes back off. Watched Trevor pulled into another conversation.
Waited for the gap.
"Ophelia," Misty said, her voice just a little too bright, a little too loud to be conversational, "let’s remind your brother that he’s still part of the family."
It cut through the chamber like silk tearing. Not sharp, not sudden—but unmistakable. Loud enough for nearby guests to pause. Loud enough to wound.