Eliana couldn't breathe.
She stared at the wedding invitation in her hands, heart thrashing like a wounded animal. The paper was real—aged at the edges, its ink slightly smeared as if touched by tears.
Eliana Rowe.
Bride of Henry Sinclair.
Ceremony: October 13th, 2021.
Two years ago.
Two years before she ever met Adrien.
Or… had she?
The handwriting at the bottom—Let her remember why—was familiar. Too familiar. Like the curve of her own penmanship seen in a mirror.
She dropped the envelope as if it had burned her.
"Eliza," she whispered.
But she didn't feel like Eliza. She didn't feel like Eliana, either.
She felt… split. Torn in half.
—
Eliana found Adrien in the garden.
He stood beside the fountain, jaw clenched, a cigarette burning between his fingers. He didn't smoke. Not anymore. But now… he looked like a man trying to forget everything he'd ever remembered.
"I need answers," she said without preamble.
He turned to face her.
"I found the invitation," she continued. "From your father. With my name on it. Explain it."
Adrien took a long drag and exhaled hard. "He said your name once, years ago. I thought it was grief. Delirium. But then you came here. And I saw your face."
He looked at her with a kind of wonder, like he was still trying to decide whether she was a ghost or a miracle.
"I thought you were her," he admitted. "The girl he could never forget. The one he claimed was stolen from him."
"So what," Eliana said, "I'm a reincarnation? A lost twin? A doppelgänger pulled from some cursed dimension?"
"I don't know," Adrien whispered. "But this family… we don't live normal lives, Eliana. We inherit sins like jewelry. We wear grief like it's stitched into our skin."
"And what about you, Adrien?" she asked. "What's your sin?"
He met her gaze. "Letting myself love someone I was never supposed to find again."
—
Later, Eliana stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom.
She studied the face that wasn't just hers anymore.
The eyes of Eliza. The handwriting. The ghost bride's warning. The list in the closet.
All of it pointed to one truth she hadn't let herself say aloud.
She had been here before.
And she had forgotten.
She went back to the hidden closet, opened the tin box again. Pulled out one of the letters she hadn't read the first time.
"To whoever I become,
Please remember that we once tried to escape.
Please remember that he loved us once.
And that the walls are watching.
They never forget. Even when we do."
Her hands shook.
The letter wasn't signed—but she knew who had written it.
Herself.
Before the forgetting. Before the rebirth. Before she became the girl who said yes to a man she couldn't remember marrying.
—
That night, thunder cracked across the estate.
Eliana woke with a scream trapped in her throat. The storm lashed against the windows. Shadows crawled across the ceiling.
And someone was standing at the end of her bed.
"Adrien?" she whispered.
But the figure didn't move.
She reached for the lamp—flicked it on.
And saw… her father.
Not Henry Sinclair. Not Adrien.
Her father. Peter Rowe.
But it couldn't be. He'd died ten years ago.
"Daddy?" she breathed.
He looked at her—empty-eyed, pale, dripping wet like he'd just crawled from a river.
"Eliana," he whispered. "You were never supposed to come back."
And then—he disappeared.
No flash. No sound. Just gone.
Eliana clutched her chest. Her breath came in short gasps.
The door burst open—Adrien rushed in, followed by Celeste.
"What happened?" Adrien shouted.
"I saw my father," Eliana said. "Right here. In this room."
Celeste exchanged a loaded glance with Adrien.
"I need to know the truth," Eliana snapped. "All of it. Now."
Celeste stepped forward. Her voice was ice. "You want truth, child? Then let's begin with this—your father was not who you think he was. And your mother didn't die in a car crash."
Eliana's body went still.
Celeste continued, "Peter Rowe was one of us. A Sinclair. A runaway. He tried to take you with him when the vows were broken. That's why they erased your memories. That's why you were brought back."
"You're lying," Eliana whispered. "You're making this up."
"No, dear," Celeste said. "You are ours. Always have been. You were born into a deal that never ended."
Adrien stepped between them. "That's enough."
But Eliana wasn't looking at them anymore. Her mind was racing through every memory, every hole, every feeling of something missing in her life.
The empty birthdays.
The feeling of being watched.
The dream she always had—running down a hallway, barefoot and bleeding, someone calling her name.
It wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
And now—it was coming back.