Chapter 71
Seth didn’t speak, but his pace slowed by half a step.
Not enough to be obvious.
Just enough to listen more closely.
“She didn’t recognize that at first,” Lurick went on, his voice dropping lower, almost reluctant now.
“And not in a confused, ‘who are you?’ kind of way.
More like... she expected me to respond a certain way. Like we had a history I hadn’t lived.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, fingers tight, jaw clenched.
“That’s how deep she is in this.”
“She’s not pretending, Seth.”
His tone was firm now, edged with something harder.
“She believes it. Every word. Every moment.”
Seth exhaled through his nose, short and sharp.
The sound wasn’t quite a sigh, it was too precise, too controlled—but it carried exhaustion all the same.
He tilted his head back slightly, eyes closing for half a second like he was recalculating the day ahead in real time.
“Great,” he muttered, voice tight.
“Perfect timing.”
He didn’t elaborate, didn’t need to.
The sarcasm was there, quiet and bitter, hanging between them like smoke.
He glanced away, jaw tightening, the line of his mouth flattening with something he didn’t say out loud.
The gravel crunched underfoot, the only sound between them for a moment.
“Dr. Blythe called me back this morning,” Seth said finally, the words clipped but measured, like a report he’d already rehearsed in his head.
“She thinks it might be a case of misidentification. Or some kind of delusional identity crossover.”
He adjusted the cuff of his shirt under his blazer, not because it needed it, but because his hands needed something to do.
“Trauma-related, possibly. Could be neurological, could be psychological. She didn’t rule out either.”
He let out a breath, colder now.
“But she wants a second opinion before she puts anything in writing.”
Lurick gave a single nod, barely more than a breath of motion.
He said only, “Oh.”
But the quiet in it wasn’t empty.
It was cautious. Watching. Holding back.
Seth’s eyes cut toward him, sharp and assessing.
There was no anger in his look, but there was calculation.
“If Henriette’s declared mentally unfit,” he said, voice low and precise, “she loses legal authority over the estate.”
He didn’t pause for emphasis. He didn’t need to.
“And the longer this drags out, the more likely Lui files for forced partition,” he added, stepping around a stray weed pushing through the cracks in the path like even the land was trying to reclaim itself.
“He’ll take it apart if he has to. Sell it in pieces. One wing at a time. Doesn’t matter to him, he just wants it liquid.”
His tone never rose.
But the warning in it was clear.
This wasn’t about whether Henriette was right.
It was about how long she could afford to be wrong.
He paused at the edge of the path, letting the weight of it all settle between them like dust after a collapse.
There was no rush to fill the silence.
Seth knew exactly what the pause was worth, it gave the truth room to breathe, and consequences time to sink in.
“He’ll sell it in chunks if he has to,” he said finally, his voice quieter now, but no less firm.
“Break the whole place apart, brick by brick. No ceremony. No hesitation.”
He looked up at the castle as he spoke, as if picturing the walls being dismantled, stone by stone, until nothing remained but legal filings and empty land.
“To Lui, this is just an asset. A stubborn one, but not sacred.”
“She’s not incapacitated,” Lurick said, his voice calm but carrying steel underneath.
Each word was chosen. Delivered with control.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away.
Whatever line Seth had been drawing, Lurick had no intention of stepping back from it.
Seth turned toward him slightly, a hollow laugh escaping his throat.
It was short, sharp, and completely without warmth.
“She’s talking like she fell out of a fairy tale,” he said, the words laced with disbelief.
“She thinks this is some other version of the world, and she’s the crown-wearing center of it.”
He shook his head once, slow.
“You call that stable?”
“That doesn’t mean she can’t sign a document,” Lurick shot back, his tone flat but edged now, irritation bleeding through the last word.
He didn’t soften it.
Didn’t try to couch it in diplomacy.
She was still a person. Not a diagnosis.
And whatever she believed, however strange it sounded, he wasn’t ready to dismiss it with paperwork.
Seth turned toward him fully now, the shift subtle but unmistakable.
His gaze narrowed, sharpening like the edge of a blade being drawn, not aggressive, but deliberate, focused.
He studied Lurick’s face the way he might assess a contract for hidden clauses.
“She told you she fell through a rift in time,” he said, enunciating each word as if repeating something too absurd to be real, but too dangerous to ignore.
He didn’t mock the idea, not openly.
But the weight he put on it made clear what he thought of its place in the conversation.