The chill from Eleanora’s call lingered in the air, a silent judgment that had settled deep in Caspian’s bones. He watched Isolde now with a new, unwelcome clarity. Every gesture seemed rehearsed, every tear a performance.
She was on the phone with a journalist, spinning her tale of heroic suffering. Her voice was pitched to a perfect, fragile sympathy.
“Even as a little girl, I couldn’t stand to see anything hurt,” she cooed into the receiver. “I remember a ski trip in Aspen, finding this little stray dog shivering behind a dumpster. I wrapped him in my scarf and smuggled him back to the hotel. My parents were furious, but I couldn’t leave him.”
Caspian froze.
The story was familiar. He’d heard it before, months ago, when she was first weaving the web of her tragic past around him. It was a touching anecdote, designed to showcase her innate compassion.
Except, he remembered it differently.
He remembered her telling him that exact story, but the city was Vail. And it had happened after a summer hiking trip, not a ski trip.
The detail was trivial. Meaningless. A tiny, insignificant slip.
After she hung up, flush with the success of her interview, he kept his tone casual. “That’s a sweet story. I thought you said that happened in Vail?”
Isolde’s smile faltered. For a split second, a flicker of pure panic crossed her eyes before being replaced by irritation.
“What? No, it was Aspen. Don’t you ever listen to me?” she snapped, her voice suddenly sharp. “My God, Caspian, I’m pouring my heart out about my childhood and you’re trying to fact-check me? Do you have any idea how that feels?”
Her reaction was wildly out of proportion. A simple mistake should have been met with a laugh, a correction. Not this defensive, aggressive panic.
The lie was small. Her reaction was not.
It was a crack in the perfect facade. A tiny, hairline fracture, but one he could now see clearly.
For the first time, a conscious, deliberate thought formed in his mind, cold and sharp as a sliver of glass.
Why would she lie about that?
The seed was planted.
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