I don't hesitate. My hand closes around the ornate door handle to Cecily's chambers, and I push. The door swings open with barely a whisper of sound, revealing a room bathed in afternoon sunlight.
Everything here is warm, golden, and luxurious. Tall windows letting in streams of light that make the silk wall hangings glow, a fire crackling merrily in the enormous hearth despite the mild weather.
And there, positioned near the fireplace where the warmth would keep them comfortable, sit two cradles. My breath catches in my throat.
Inside the cradles lie two infant boys in blue fabric.
For a moment, I can't move. Can't do anything except stare at those two tiny forms, swaddled in the finest linen I've ever seen—far finer than what was in my chambers yesterday.
One is sleeping peacefully, his miniature chest rising and falling with each breath. The other's eyes are open, staring unfocused at nothing, one perfect little fist waving slowly in the air.
My legs carry me forward, trembling so badly I nearly fall. I grip the edge of the nearest cradle to steady myself, and the moment I look down at the sleeping infant, recognition slams into me with the force of a physical blow.
I know him. Not the way you might recognize a baby as being generally infant-shaped and adorable. I know him.
The precise shape of his tiny nose. The curve of his mouth, the exact bow of his upper lip. The way his fist is curled near his cheek, thumb tucked under his fingers rather than over them.
I used to press my palm against the spot where his little fist would push out. And I would laugh and cry at the same time because it meant he was alive, he was moving, he was mine.
This is my son.
I look at the second cradle, and the same overwhelming certainty crashes over me. That one's eyes—gray, unfocused, but unmistakably gray like mine. The shape of his ears, small and delicate. The way his hair grows in a slight swirl at his crown.
These are my sons.
Every molecule in my body screams the truth. Every instinct, every fiber of my being, every drop of blood in my veins knows these babies with absolute certainty.
A mother knows her children. A mother knows.
My hands shake as I reach into the first cradle, carefully sliding my palms under the sleeping infant's warm, solid weight. He makes a small sound of protest but doesn't wake as I lift him against my chest.
The feeling of holding him—finally, finally holding him again—nearly brings me to my knees. He's heavier than I remember from those brief moments after birth. He smells like milk and something indefinably sweet that makes my breasts ache.
"Hello…" I whisper against his soft hair. "Hello, my darling. My sweet boy… I'm here. Ma’ma's here."
My fingers tremble as I shift his swaddling, searching frantically for his little arm. I need to see it. I need the proof. The birthmark that matches mine, that four-pointed star that marked him as mine beyond any doubt.
The linen falls away and my heart stops.
There. Right there. The star-shaped mark, exactly where it should be. Exactly the shape as the one I've carried on my own arm my entire life.
A sob tears from my throat. "You're mine… You're mine, and they took you, and they—"
"What are you doing here, you filthy creature?"
The voice cuts through the room like a blade, sharp and cold and filled with venom. I spin around, clutching my son to my chest, and find Cecily standing in the doorway.
She's beautiful as always—flawless porcelain skin, golden hair arranged in perfect curls, her figure already recovering from childbirth in a way mine never has. But her face is twisted with fury, her eyes blazing with something that looks like genuine hatred.
"Couldn't just accept another of your failures like a dignified woman?" she hisses, taking a step into the room. "Had to come here and…"
"These are my sons." My voice doesn't shake despite everything. It comes out clear and strong and absolutely certain. "I gave birth to them two days ago. You know it. The midwives know it. Everyone who participated in this… this unthinkable theft… knows it."
Cecily's eyes widen, and for just a moment, I see something flicker across her face. Something that looks almost like fear, like a mask slipping before she can catch it. Then her expression transforms.
It happens so quickly I almost miss it—the way her features shift from fury to horror, from hatred to theatrical shock. Her mouth opens wide, and she screams.
"Help!" she shrieks. "Someone help! There's an intruder! She's trying to take my babies! Guards! Someone, please!"
"Stop it!" I hold my son tighter, backing away from her. "Stop this. These are my children! You know—"
The door bursts open as guards flood into the room, followed by servants who gasp and cry out at the scene before them. Like discovering something terrible. Like finding a madwoman trying to steal another woman’s children.
Hands grab at me from all sides—rough, urgent, and unforgiving hands that don't care about my still-healing body or the baby in my arms. "No!" I try to twist away, but there are too many of them. "Don't touch him! He's mine! He's—"
A guard wrenches the infant from my grip. My son wakes with a scream—that same sharp, pure cry I heard during his birth. The sound that has haunted my dreams for two days.
The sound that proves he's alive, that he was always alive. That they've been lying to me since the moment they took him away.
"Give him back!" I lurch toward the guard holding my baby, but other hands close around me, holding me fast. "That's my son! Those are both my sons! I gave birth to them! Let me go!"
"The madwoman has completely lost her senses!" Cecily's voice rises above the chaos, trembling with perfectly performed distress. "She lost her own babies and now she's trying to steal mine!"
"That's a lie!" I fight against the guards' grip, but they're too strong, and my body is still too weak. "These are my children, they were taken from me. Someone examine them! The birthmark, he has a birthmark on his arm, the same one I have!"
"My lady." One of the guards, a captain by his insignia, looks at me with something that might be a pity in other circumstances. "You broke into the Countess's private bedchambers, you were found holding one of her newborn sons without permission."
"Without permission?" The words come out as a broken laugh. "They're my sons. I don't need permission to hold my own children!"
"She's completely deranged…" a servant mutters, loud enough for everyone to hear. The disgust in her voice is palpable. "The poor Countess, having to deal with this after just giving birth…"
"No!" I gasp, still reaching for my sons even as the guards begin dragging me backward toward the door.
Both babies are crying now, their wails filling the room, and I know those cries. I know them like I know my own heartbeat.
"Please. Please, just look at them. Check for the birthmark. Do anything. There has to be a way to prove…"
"Remove her. Immediately." Cecily's voice has gone cold, regal. "Before she does something truly dangerous. The poor creature has clearly suffered a complete mental breakdown. It's tragic, really, but we must think of the children's safety."
"They're my children!" I scream it as the guards haul me toward the door, my heels dragging across the floor. "They're mine! Cecily, you know they're mine! You—"
My words cut off as they wrench me through the doorway.
I twist in their grasp, craning my neck to see into the room one last time. Through the gap in the closing door, I see Cecily holding one of my sons, rocking him with false tenderness. A nursemaid has picked up the other. Both babies are still crying, and the sound tears something vital loose inside my chest.
The door slams shut with a heavy, final thud, the crying fades to nothing behind thick oak and stone.
My sons are gone. Again.
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