Three months had passed.
The clamor of the scandal had faded to a dull, persistent hum in the background of a life Lyra was meticulously building from scratch. The world still churned with opinions, but here, in the spare room of Zara’s apartment, the only sound was the quiet click of a hex key turning a screw.
She was assembling a crib.
The pale wood smelled of fresh varnish and new beginnings. Her movements were slow, deliberate, a concession to the heavy weight of her third trimester. The high-risk pregnancy was a constant, a shadow that dictated every moment. Stay off your feet. Avoid stress. Breathe.
A stack of fan mail sat unopened on the dresser. She ignored it. Beside it, however, was a single, laminated magazine clipping—a critic’s review of the album she’d released after winning Starlight Serenade. It called her voice “a raw and necessary truth.” That, she kept.
The front door opened and closed, followed by the familiar sound of Zara dropping her keys into a ceramic bowl.
“I swear you’re not allowed to be doing that,” Zara said, appearing in the doorway, her scrubs rumpled from a long shift at St. Jude’s Medical Center. Her gaze was already professional, scanning Lyra for any sign of distress before softening into the familiar warmth of a friend.
“The instructions said one person could assemble it,” Lyra replied, tightening a final bolt. She straightened with a wince, her hand instinctively going to the small of her back.
“The instructions weren’t written for a woman carrying a baby who has decided to make her life as difficult as possible.” Zara gently took her arm, guiding her to the rocking chair in the corner. She knelt, pulling out the blood pressure cuff she now kept at home. “Feet up. Now.”
Lyra complied, sinking into the cushions. This was their new normal. A quiet, domestic routine governed by medical necessity and a fierce, shared determination to bring this child into the world safely.
Later, as twilight stretched shadows across the new nursery, they sat in the living room. The evening news murmured from the television. A political scandal, a weather report. Lyra barely listened, her attention on the soft kicks from within.
Then, Caspian’s name cut through the haze.
A business reporter stood in front of a sleek, glass-walled building. “Caspian Hawthorne, still on his indefinite leave from Hawthorne Industries, continued the liquidation of his personal assets today with the sale of his landmark penthouse, fetching a record price.”
Lyra’s hand stilled on her belly.
“Sources close to the deal confirm,” the reporter continued, her voice crisp, “that the entirety of the proceeds have been transferred to a victim’s compensation fund established for those defrauded by The Finch Foundation.”
Zara watched Lyra, her expression carefully neutral, gauging the impact.
Lyra’s face was a placid mask. She registered the information as a distant fact, a piece of data that no longer had the power to wound. His public apology remained unread. His public penance was his own affair.
She picked up the remote.
The screen went black.
“It’s getting late,” Lyra said, her voice even. “I should get some rest.”
She didn’t say another word about it.
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