. CHAPTER 3 — The Necklace That Remembered Her
Margot had expected Lily to cry.
Women like Margot trusted tears. Tears made accusations easier. Tears made poor girls look guilty even when their hands were clean.
But Margot had not expected the necklace to react.
The moment the Belcourt Tear touched Lily’s collarbone, a tiny hidden hinge beneath the emerald shifted with a faint metallic sound. It was almost nothing, the kind of sound a room full of laughter would swallow.
But this room was silent.
Lily heard it.
Margot heard it too.
The older woman’s hand tightened around the chain. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Lily stared into the mirror, frightened by the way the jewel seemed suddenly alive. “You put it on me.”
Margot pulled the pendant forward and examined the back. Her face lost color under the vanity lights.
Lily saw it then: engraved into the silver backing was a crest, worn faint by age. A bird with open wings. A crown above it. A letter hidden in the feathers.
B.
Her breath caught.
The same bird had been engraved on the tiny baby bracelet Mae had kept in the tin box.
Lily’s hand rose before she could stop herself and touched the pendant.
Margot slapped her fingers away. “Do not put your hands on it.”
“My bracelet has that mark,” Lily whispered.
“What bracelet?”
“The one my mother kept.”
“You do not have a mother in this house.”
Lily looked at her then. Not at the emerald, not at the mirror, but at Margot’s eyes.
Something inside the older woman was not angry anymore.
It was panicked.
Margot stepped back, then turned to the vanity and opened the jewelry case with trembling hands. Beneath the removable satin cushion was a narrow compartment Lily would never have noticed.
Margot did not seem to mean to open it. Her thumb slipped, the panel clicked, and a folded strip of yellowed paper slid halfway out.
Lily saw only three words before Margot snatched it away.
For my daughter.
Lily forgot how to breathe.
Margot shoved the paper into her clutch, slammed the case shut, and turned her smile back on with terrifying speed.
“You are very imaginative,” she said.
“My mother said Belcourt stole something.”
Margot’s eyes went flat.
“Your mother,” she said, “should have stayed quiet.”
May you like
Then she grabbed Lily by the shoulder and dragged her toward the door.
“Now,” Margot hissed, “we are going downstairs, and you are going to confess before I have security do it for you.”
