Sunlight bled through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the formal dining room, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
The long mahogany table was set for breakfast. Idella had deliberately instructed the staff to place Eloise's silver cutlery at the very end of the table, right next to the swinging doors of the kitchen. It was a physical manifestation of her status: an afterthought.
Eloise walked into the room. She wore a sharp, tailored black suit that hid her bandages. She looked at the seat by the kitchen, let out a soft scoff, and walked directly to the head of the table.
Cortez was sitting in the chair to the right of his father. Eloise stood behind him. She didn't say a word. She just stared at the back of his head until the physical pressure of her gaze made his neck prickle.
Cortez looked up, scowled, but remembering the threat from last night, he grabbed his plate and angrily moved to the opposite side of the table.
Eloise sat down in the seat of power.
Marcus cleared his throat, trying to project patriarchal authority. "Eloise. Since you've decided to take control of your life, let's discuss your living arrangements."
"I am moving back into the top-floor master suite," Eloise stated. It wasn't a request.
Idella's coffee cup slammed onto her saucer. "Absolutely not. Jaylene is staying in that room. Her therapist said she needs the southern sunlight for her anxiety. You can take the guest room in the east wing."
Jaylene immediately lowered her head. Her shoulders began to shake slightly. "It's okay, Aunt Idella," she whispered, her voice trembling with practiced fragility. "I can move to the basement. I don't want to upset Eloise. She's been through so much."
Cortez slammed his fist on the table, rattling the silverware. "You are a monster, Eloise! Jaylene took care of Mom and Dad while you were locked up in that clinic! She's more of a daughter to them than you'll ever be!"
Marcus rubbed his temples. "Eloise, be reasonable. It's just a room."
Eloise sat perfectly still. She watched them. The moral kidnapping. The gaslighting. In her past life, this exact conversation had ended with her crying, apologizing, and retreating to a damp guest room while Jaylene slept in her bed.
She wanted to know why. Why did a mother hate her own flesh and blood so much?
Under the table, hidden by the heavy linen tablecloth, Eloise's fingers moved. She formed an ancient, complex seal with her hands. She pushed her consciousness downward, drawing the mystic energy from her core up into her optic nerves.
Her vision shifted. The physical world washed out into grayscale.
The life force of the people in the room exploded into brilliant colors.
She looked at Marcus. His aura was a murky, swirling gray-blue. It reeked of political calculation and cowardice.
She shifted her gaze to Idella. Her mother's aura was a violent, pulsing dark red. It was thick with greed and an overwhelming, suffocating maternal protection.
Eloise looked for the energetic tether-the biological cord of light that always connected a mother's aura to her biological child. She looked at her own chest. Nothing. There was no connection between her and Idella.
Her breath hitched. She followed the thick red cords extending from Idella's chest.
One cord shot across the table and buried itself directly into Cortez's chest. That was normal. He was her son.
But the second cord...
Eloise's eyes widened in sheer horror. The second, equally thick red cord bypassed Eloise entirely and plunged straight into the chest of the weeping, fragile Jaylene.
It didn't stop there.
She watched the two streams of light intertwining like vines, locked in a rare, flawless symbiotic state. A bond this tightly woven... besides blood-linked twins sharing the exact same womb at the exact same time, she couldn't deduce a single other possibility.
Twins.
Eloise's head snapped toward Marcus. She looked for the father's connection. There was nothing. Marcus's gray aura was completely severed from Cortez and Jaylene.
The truth hit her brain with the force of a freight train. Idella had an affair. Cortez and Jaylene were illegitimate twins. They had faked Jaylene's identity as a "cousin" to bring her into the house.
This wasn't a family. This was a nest of parasites who had stolen her father's name, her inheritance, and her life. And only she was the outsider.
