On our wedding night, I had to give up my bed to my mother-in-law after everyone insisted she was "too drunk" to stay anywhere else.

He didn't answer.

That was its own answer.

I sat down in the chair across from him.

I didn't raise my voice.

I didn't move toward him.

I just sat and waited, and the silence stretched between us like something that had been there for a long time and was only now becoming visible.

"Julian," I said finally.

"I spoke to Sophie tonight."

His head came up.

"She told me about the journal," I said.

"She told me what your mother found and what she did with it.

She told me about Aunt Ruth." I paused.

"And I found my travel bag disturbed.

The outer pocket.

My mother's letters."

He stood up.

He walked to the window and stood with his back to me, his hand on the curtain.

"I didn't know she was going to do that," he said.

"But you knew it was possible."

He didn't answer.

"Julian.

Did you know your mother goes through the belongings of the women you bring home?"

A long pause.

"I suspected."

The word landed like a stone.

"You suspected," I said.

"And you let her into our bedroom anyway."

"I thought — I hoped — that this time it would be different.

That she would just do the ritual and leave it at that.

That she wouldn't—" He stopped.

"That she wouldn't what?"

"That she wouldn't find anything she could use."

I heard what he was saying underneath that.

He hadn't tried to stop her.

He had calculated the risk and decided I was safe enough.

That there was nothing in my bag that could be weaponized.

He had let her in and hoped for the best.

"So you knew," I said.

"You knew what she does.

You knew what she did to Sophie.

And you didn't tell me.

You didn't warn me.

You didn't protect me."

"Elena—"

"You let her into our room and you went to sleep."

He turned from the window.

His face was stricken.

Genuinely stricken.

I believed the pain on it was real.

"I didn't go to sleep," he said.

"I lay there the whole night.

I heard her moving around.

I told myself it was just the ritual.

I told myself she wasn't—" He stopped again.

"I couldn't make myself get up and stop her.

I've never been able to make myself stop her.

I don't know how to explain that to you."

"Try," I said.

He came and sat down on the sofa.

He put his face in his hands for a moment.

Then he looked up.

"When I was nine and my father died, my mother fell apart.

Completely.

For about a year, she couldn't function.

I was the one who held things together.

I made sure she ate.

I sat with her when she cried.

I learned very early that my mother's stability was my responsibility.

That if I pushed back, if I upset her, things would collapse." He looked at his hands.

"I'm forty-one years old and I still can't get out of that pattern.

I know it's wrong.

I know it's not fair to you.

But when she asks me for something, there is a part of me that is still nine years old and terrified of what happens if I say no."

The room was quiet.

I believed him.

I believed every word of it.

And it changed nothing about what had happened.

"Julian," I said.

"I understand why you are the way you are with her.

I do.

But understanding why something happened doesn't make it acceptable.

You made a choice last night.

You chose not to protect me.

And you made that choice knowing what she was capable of."

"I know."

"If this marriage is going to work, that cannot happen again.

Not once.

Not ever.

Your mother does not come into our home and go through my things.

Your mother does not perform rituals in our bedroom.

Your mother does not have access to our private life in any way that I have not explicitly agreed to.

And if she tries, you stop her.

Not me.

You."

He looked at me steadily.

"Yes."

"I need more than yes, Julian."

"I know." He leaned forward.

"Elena, I will fix this.

I will talk to her.

I will make it clear that what she did was not acceptable and that it cannot happen again."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"I want to be there," I said.

He hesitated.

"I want to be in the room," I said.

"I want to hear what she says and I want her to know that I know.

All of it."

Another hesitation.

Longer this time.

"Okay," he said finally.

I stood up.

"I'm going to bed.

I'll sleep in the guest room tonight."

He didn't argue.

He just nodded, and I saw in his face the particular grief of a man who understood, for the first time, exactly what he had put at risk.

I went upstairs.

I locked the guest room door.

I lay in the dark and thought about Sophie in Edinburgh, building a quiet life after being slowly dismantled by a woman who smiled warmly and held your hand a beat too long.

I thought about my mother's letters in my travel bag, and Victoria's hands on them in the dark.

I thought about what I was going to say tomorrow when we sat down with Victoria, and I thought about what Victoria was going to do when she realized that this time, the woman across from her already knew everything.

My phone lit up on the nightstand.

A message from Diane.

*Carol got back to me about the vial.

Elena — the unidentified substance?

She thinks it might be something that enhances the effect of the sedative.

Makes it stronger.

More reliable.

She wants to know if Julian showed any unusual symptoms this morning — disorientation, memory gaps, anything like that.*

I stared at the message.

Then I thought about Julian lying on his back that morning, eyes closed, breathing uneven.

Not asleep.

But not quite right either.