A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 80: All in

Tom smiled at that—genuinely, this time. "See. That's why I like you."

Her mouth twitched. "You don't like anyone."

He didn't deny it.

Outside, the fog thickened, blurring even the ghost-lamps on the path. The sound of hooves was softened to a hush beneath the charmwork.

Inside, he studied her like she was a puzzle already half-solved.

"You don't believe in any of it," he said, quiet now. "The rhetoric. The bloodlines. The sacred this and ancestral that."

She didn't flinch.

"You think I haven't noticed?" he continued. "You've never quoted Salazar. You don't even correct people when they misname your House. Half the time you speak like you were raised by philosophers, not aristocrats."

Anastasia met his gaze. "And yet you keep me at your side."

"Because you understand the performance," Tom said. "And because you care about the same thing I do."

"Which is?"

He smiled again. "Control."

Her stomach turned, but she gave no sign.

"I've watched you," he said. "Since you were fifteen. The way you walk into a room like it owes you silence. The way you let people underestimate you, then bury them with three words. You don't care about any of it. Not the politics. Not the legacy. What you care about is how it moves. Who flinches first. Who holds the knife."

"And what does that make me?" she asked, softly.

He tilted his head again. "Practical."

She gave the faintest of smiles. "That's not a compliment."

"It is," he said. "From me."

He leaned back again, relaxing into the seat as if the point had been made.

"I know what you are," Tom said. "I know that behind all the poetry, all the grace, you're not here to preserve tradition. You're here because you've seen how fragile it all is. Because you want something that lasts."

He paused, then added—

"And I know you'd never say that aloud. Not even to me. Because if you did, it would be real."

Anastasia said nothing. Her gaze was on the window again, on the reflection of her face split by lanternlight and branches.

She felt nauseous.

Not from fear. From the terrible, precise way he misread her.

He thought she was playing the same game. That her silence was strategy. That her poise meant agreement. He couldn't see that it was all scaffolding. That beneath the steel and silk, her bones ached from how hard she was trying not to shake.

And yet, she couldn't correct him.

Because if she did—

She'd die. Or worse, he'd try to understand her.

She breathed in slowly through her nose.

"Power," she said finally, voice quiet. "That's what you think I care about."

"You do," he said. "You're just more elegant about it than the rest of them."

She looked at him. Really looked.

And lied.

"You're right."

His expression didn't change. But his posture eased by degrees. A man who had taken the bait and assumed it was wine.

The carriage rolled on.

She folded her hands again, slower this time. Tighter. The gloves stretched against her knuckles.

He watched her still, but he didn't speak again.

He thought the conversation was over. That she had confirmed what he already knew.

But in Anastasia's mind, the words still echoed:

You still think you're not all in.

And for the first time, she didn't know if he was wrong.

Because she had spoken the words. Worn the dress. Played the part so well that even she could no longer tell when the act stopped and the truth began.

She turned back to the window. Her reflection met her gaze.

Two women stared at each other across the fog.

One belonged to Tom Riddle.

The other was running out of time.