Chapter 18 - THE THIRD BUTTONAmelia did not touch either button.
Nathaniel examined the wall around the control panel.
“There is always another route.”
Samuel shook his head.
“Sebastian designed this system. He believed choice revealed blood.”
Amelia looked at the two illuminated words.
FATHER.
BROTHER.
A false choice was still a choice if she accepted its rules.
She fired once into the panel.
The lights went dark.
The countdown continued.
Nathaniel forced open the maintenance cover beneath it. A cluster of wires led toward three separate circuits.
“Three outputs,” he said.
“There are only two buttons.”
“Then the third circuit is hidden.”
Amelia placed her hand against the wall.
Theodore had once taught her that Hart Meridian vaults concealed emergency controls behind surfaces warmed by machinery.
One section of metal felt colder than the others.
She struck it with the weapon grip.
A third button appeared.
MOTHER.
Samuel stared at it.
“That should not exist.”
The timer reached thirty-two seconds.
Amelia pressed MOTHER.
All three doors unlocked.
The underground chamber opened.
Theodore sat restrained beneath a hanging light.
Gabriel lay on the floor, blood spreading from his shoulder.
Elias stood behind Theodore with a weapon aimed at the woman wearing Helen’s face.
She held the Orpheus ledger.
Amelia entered slowly.
The woman looked at her.
“My daughter.”
Amelia raised her weapon.
“My mother died twenty-eight years ago.”
“So did your brother.”
Elias tightened his grip.
“Do not listen to her.”
Theodore struggled against the restraints.
“Amelia, she knows things Helen knew.”
“That does not make her Helen.”
The woman smiled faintly.
“You always questioned affection before you accepted it. Even as a child.”
Amelia’s pulse changed.
Helen had written those exact words in the letter Theodore once showed her.
The woman opened the ledger to a page containing photographs of two infants.
Beneath Amelia’s image:
SUCCESSOR A — PUBLIC HEIR
Beneath Elias’s:
SUCCESSOR B — CORRECTIVE HEIR
A third photograph had been removed.
The woman placed a finger against the empty space.
“There were never two successors.”
Elias’s face changed.
“How many?”
“Three.”
The factory speakers crackled.
Gabriel’s voice came from the floor.
“You should have killed her before she reached that page.”
He reached for a hidden trigger.
Nathaniel shot it from his hand.
The floor beneath the chamber began descending.
Gabriel laughed through the pain.
“Too late.”
Steel walls sealed around them.
Water rose beneath the grated floor.
The woman with Helen’s face looked at Amelia.
“The third successor controls the flood system.”
“Who is it?”
Theodore lowered his head.
May you like
Amelia saw guilt before he spoke.
“Julian.”
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