The next day, the Riverside Cafe is destroyed.

I don't see it happen—I'm confined to my room, locked in from the outside, for the first time since I arrived at this house. But I hear about it from the servants whispering in the kitchen. A fire. Some kind of accident with the stove. Lucky that Sophie wasn't there. Lucky that no one was hurt.

Lucky.

The word feels like a curse.

I sit on my narrow bed and think about Sophie's paint-stained hands and her warm smile. I think about the way she made tea without being asked. I think about how, in the space of just a few weeks, the Riverside Cafe became the one place in the world where I felt like I was allowed to be myself.

And I think about how my uncle destroyed it to prove a point.

To prove that he owns me. That my life is not my own. That any attempt to claim autonomy will result in consequences that extend far beyond myself.

Dominic doesn't come to the cafe because the cafe no longer exists. I don't get messages. I don't get proof that he's still trying to help me. For all I know, he's moved on, found another cause, another lost person to rescue. I'm just back where I started—invisible, forgotten, contained.

Days blur together.

I'm allowed out of my room to work, but always under supervision. A guard—because that's what it is, even if Marcus calls her a "housekeeper"—follows me from room to room. My uncle has essentially made me a prisoner in a house I've lived in my entire life.

James visits during this time, and I hear him laughing with Marcus, hear them talking about me like I'm not there.

"What will you do with her?" James asks.

"Nothing, for now," Marcus replies. "She'll stay here, serve the household, and accept her place. Eventually, she'll realize that Dominic isn't coming back. That he's abandoned her just like her father did. And once she accepts that, she'll be useful again."

But Dominic does come back.

It happens on a Thursday evening, about two weeks after I was locked in my room. There's a knock on the door so authoritative, so commanding, that the entire household seems to freeze. The guard who's been following me steps forward, and I hear Marcus's voice from somewhere downstairs, angry and controlled.

I creep to the top of the stairs, pressing myself against the wall.

Dominic stands in the foyer, looking larger than life, and there are papers in his hands. Official-looking papers.

"What is this?" Marcus demands.

"A restraining order," Dominic says calmly. "Signed by a judge. You're not to come within five hundred meters of the Riverside Cafe. You're not to contact Sophie Martinez. And you're not to have any contact with Eleanor Ashford beyond what's legally necessary."

"You have no authority over my ward—"

"On the contrary," Dominic interrupts. "I've had Eleanor legally declared. She's no longer your ward. As of this morning, I'm her legal guardian. You can contest it if you want, but given what I've documented about the conditions she's been living in, the lack of education, the physical confinement, the isolation... I don't think that will end well for you."

I can't breathe. I can barely process what I'm hearing.

"You can't do this," Marcus says, but his voice is losing its certainty.

"I already have," Dominic replies. "Eleanor? I know you're listening. Come down. It's time to leave."

And I do something I've never done before in this house. I don't hesitate. I don't consider consequences. I simply obey Dominic instead of Marcus, which might be my greatest rebellion yet.

When I appear at the top of the stairs, I see the shock on my uncle's face. I see the realization that he's lost control of me.

I descend slowly, my hand on the banister, and I feel like Eleanor Ashford for the first time in eighteen years. Not Girl. Not invisible. But myself.

"Is this what you want?" Dominic asks as I reach him. "To come with me?"

I look back at the house one final time—at the crystal chandeliers and the white walls and the portrait of my great-grandfather scowling from above the fireplace. I look at Marcus, whose anger is now mixed with something like desperation.

"Yes," I say, and the word feels like freedom. "Yes, I want to come with you."

"Then let's go," Dominic says, and he takes my hand.

As we walk toward the door, Marcus calls out: "You'll regret this! Both of you!"

Dominic doesn't slow down. He doesn't look back.

But I do, just for a moment, and I see my mother watching from the top of the stairs—my mother, whom I haven't seen clearly in so many years. She's crying, and there's an expression on her face like she wants to say something, like she's sorry, like she wishes she had been braver than she was.

And then the door closes behind us, and I step out of Blackstone Manor for the final time.