Chapter 20 - The Shattered Reflection
Lily stood on the path, rubbing her eyes, clutching her silver music box in one hand and a heavy iron pruning shear in the other.
"Lily, run!" Eleanor screamed.
Julian turned his head toward the child, a sickeningly sweet smile spreading across his face.
"Come here, Lily," Julian cooed, extending a hand. "Come to your real father."
Lily looked at Julian.
Then she looked down at Arthur, bleeding on the stone floor.
"You're the monster from the wall," Lily said softly.
Before Julian could react, Lily didn't run.
With the same terrifying ferocity she had displayed when she smashed the wedding wall with a hammer, the six-year-old girl slammed the sharp iron pruning shears straight into Julian’s kneecap.
Julian shrieked in agony, dropping the cane and collapsing sideways with a sickening thud.
Arthur didn't hesitate.
Adrenaline surged through his veins, dulling the pain in his fractured ribs.
He tackled Julian to the floor, wrapping both hands around his brother's throat, pinning him against the jagged base of a stone planter.
"It's over," Arthur snarled, his eyes wild with fury. "You died eight years ago, Julian. Now stay dead."
Julian gasped for air, his lips curling into a bloody, mocking grin beneath Arthur’s grip.
"You... think... she's your... Eleanor?" Julian wheezed, blood flecking his teeth.
Arthur tightened his grip. "Stop lying!"
"Ask her..." Julian choked out, his eyes rolling back toward Eleanor, who had somehow managed to untie her wrists and was now standing by the glass doors. "Ask her... about the twin."
Arthur froze.
A cold, paralyzing dread swept through his limbs.
He slowly turned his head toward Eleanor.
She wasn't running toward Lily.
She wasn't rushing to help him.
She was standing under the moonlight streaming through the shattered glass dome, holding a small silver remote detonator in her hand.
Her face had completely lost its warmth, its terror, its love.
The gentle, fragile woman Arthur had married had vanished.
In her place stood an icy, calculating stranger with eyes as dark as obsidian.
"Thank you for finding the journals, Arthur," the woman said, her voice dropping an octave, smooth and devoid of any human emotion.
"Eleanor?" Arthur whispered, his hands slipping from Julian’s neck in sheer disbelief.
The woman tilted her head and smiled a cruel, beautiful smile.
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"Eleanor drowned in the lake six months ago, darling," she said softly, her thumb hovering over the red button of the detonator. "I'm her sister, Clara. And you just delivered Julian right into my hands."
Outside, the first explosion ripped through the foundation of the cliffside conservatory, and the glass dome above them began to rain down in thousands of razor-sharp shards.
