I expected to see her asleep.
I expected to catch her rummaging through my belongings.

Instead, the night-vision footage showed Elena sitting on the floor between the two cribs. She wasn’t resting. She was holding Leo—the fragile twin—pressed against her bare chest, skin to skin, the way Seraphina had once explained helped regulate a baby’s breathing.

But that… wasn’t the shock.

The camera captured a subtle, steady motion. Elena was rocking gently as she hummed a tune—the exact lullaby Seraphina had written for the twins before her death. It had never been published. No one else on earth should have known it.

Then the nursery door slowly opened.

Beatrice stepped inside. She wasn’t there out of concern. In her hand was a small silver dropper. She moved directly to Noah’s crib—the healthy twin—and began dripping a clear liquid into his bottle.

Elena rose to her feet, still holding Leo close. Her voice carried through the audio feed—soft, shaking, yet edged with an unmistakable command.

“Stop, Beatrice,” Elena said. “I already swapped the bottles. You’re giving him plain water now. The sedative you’ve been dosing Leo with to make him appear ‘ill’? I found the vial in your vanity yesterday.”