The woman’s voice came from behind him like something pulled from a grave. Not loud. Not threatening. Just there — the way a name you’ve tried to forget arrives in a quiet room and fills every corner before you’ve decided what to do about it. Edward Ashworth did not turn around immediately. That was the detail Grace noticed later — that he went still first, hands suspended mid-reach toward the child, before his color left him entirely. She had watched men receive bad news before. She had never watched a man receive a voice. The girl with the locket stood between them, barefoot on the warm stone of the terrace, looking from one to the other with the particular patience of a child who has learned that adults sometimes need a moment. She didn’t know what the voice meant. Grace did.
