“You can eat it,” Ethan said from the bed. “Nobody’s going to charge you.”

Lily frowned.

“I knew that.”

“You’ve been staring at it for ten minutes.”

“I’m waiting for it to cool.”

“It stopped steaming five minutes ago.”

She finally lifted the spoon.

The first taste made her eyes close.

Ethan pretended not to notice how quickly she swallowed the rest.

When Maxwell returned, a woman from child services stood beside him. Lily immediately placed the tray down and rose.

“Lily,” Maxwell began.

“I’m not going back.”

The social worker, Naomi Perez, crouched so she would not tower over her.

“No one is forcing you anywhere tonight. We need to make sure you’re safe.”

“The last place said that too.”

“What happened there?”

Lily’s lips pressed together.

Nothing frightened her more than a kind adult with a patient voice. Cruel people were predictable. Kindness could make a child hope, and hope was dangerous.

Ethan reached toward her.

“Tell them about your grandmother.”

Lily glared at him, but her anger dissolved almost immediately.

“She died in a fire,” she whispered. “After that, they sent me to St. Agnes House. One of the supervisors locked kids in a storage room when they cried. I told someone. Nobody believed me.”

Naomi’s expression darkened.

“Was that why you ran?”

Lily nodded.

Maxwell knelt near her.

“I will not send you back there.”

“You don’t get to decide.”

“No,” he admitted. “But I can hire lawyers who make people listen.”

For the first time, something almost like amusement flickered across Lily’s face.

“That sounds like a rich-person answer.”

“It is.”

Ethan smiled weakly.

“My dad has lots of those.”

Naomi agreed to an emergency protective placement at the Blackwood residence while St. Agnes was investigated. Lily objected until Ethan began to cry.

“I woke up every night after Mom died,” he told her. “Dad always stayed until I fell asleep again. Tonight, I don’t think I can sleep unless I know you’re still there.”

Lily looked down at her borrowed sweater.

“All right,” she murmured. “Just tonight.”

The Blackwood mansion overlooked the East River, with more rooms than Lily believed one family could possibly need. She stood beneath a crystal chandelier, clutching a plastic hospital bag containing everything she owned.

Maxwell’s mother arrived before midnight.

Helena Blackwood entered the foyer wearing pearls, a sable-trimmed coat, and an expression carved from ice.

“I came as soon as I heard,” she announced.

Then she saw Lily.

The color vanished from Helena’s face.

Her handbag slipped from her fingers and struck the marble floor.

For three terrible seconds, no one spoke.

Helena stared at the child’s dark curls, gray-green eyes, and small crescent-shaped birthmark beneath her left ear.

“What is your name?” she demanded.

Lily stepped backward.

“Lily Tucker.”

Helena gripped the banister.

“That’s impossible.”

Maxwell’s gaze sharpened.

“Why?”

Before Helena could answer, Lily’s hospital bag fell open. A cracked silver locket rolled across the floor.

Helena saw it.

A tiny blackwood tree was engraved upon its surface.

She turned toward the door.

Maxwell moved faster and blocked her path.

“Mother,” he said quietly, “how does a homeless child possess the locket I gave my wife on the night our son was born?”

PART 3 — THE CHILD THEY ERASED
Helena recovered quickly.

“It is an imitation,” she said. “Someone is manipulating you.”

Lily snatched up the locket.

“It belonged to my grandmother.”

“What was her name?” Maxwell asked.