#Chapter 63: Smoke & Mirrors

Agnes By the time I stepped through the front door that night, I felt exhausted. Not even necessarily in a bad way—just the kind of tiredness that seeps into the soles of your feet and your shoulders and makes your eyes droop no matter how much coffee you drink. From the dim light pooling out from under Elijah’s office door, I could tell he was working. Meanwhile, Thea’s soft voice drifted down from where she was playing in her room upstairs, causing a bittersweet smile to tug at the edges of my lips. I tried not to think about last night. Not about Olivia and Elijah’s kiss, surprisingly. But rather about the way Thea had curled against me, whispering that she wished I was her mother. I wished she was my daughter, too. I hoped she was, even if it felt crazy and pointless and doomed. A part of me, the part that still held optimism in my heart, prayed that I’d finally found her after all these years. That both of our dreams could come true in this matter, e