A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 83: Appearances

Chapter 83: Appearances

The weather had cleared overnight.

The sky, a perfect spring blue. Birds singing in the hedgerows. The last frost melted from the grass like it had never meant to settle. It should've been beautiful.

Instead, it felt like a mockery.

The carriage rattled softly along the gravel drive, the sun glinting off its lacquered windows. Anastasia sat beside Tom in silence, one hand folded over the other, her new ring still in place. It throbbed faintly, or maybe that was her imagination. A ghost sensation. The echo of a cut long since scabbed.

She didn't look at him. He hadn't spoken since they stepped in. Just rested a hand across his lap, gaze turned toward the window, as if enjoying the view. The faintest trace of a smile curved his mouth. Composed. Content.

Of course he was. He always was after blood.

She watched the road instead. Trees passed in blur. Stone gates in the distance. The smell of damp earth, of warming air. The sort of weather that suggested rebirth. Renewal.

Spring.

She hated spring.

It was too hopeful. Too bright. A lie in itself.

Because all she could see—behind the sunshine and the trees and the soft blue sky—was fire. Ash curling up into the night, rooftops blackened, the timber frames of the Weasley property collapsing in on themselves like a lung giving out.

They'd burned it to the ground. Not because it was occupied. Not because it had value. Just to send a message. Just to remind the world who was watching.

It had been empty. Utterly, almost insultingly so.

She'd known it would be.

That was the plan. That was the hope.

And still—she'd held her breath the whole time, waiting for a scream to pierce the dark. For a child's shoe to be found under the floorboards. For James' name to be shouted from the rubble.

But nothing.

Just embers and soot and the familiar stink of spellfire.

After that, they moved on to the warehouse in Soho. Less theatrical. More brutal.

Five casualties.

She didn't know most of them. A couple of familiar names from school. Names she'd overheard in the corridors. Seen on Quidditch or prefect rosters. Not friends. Not strangers, either.

They were the kind of names that slipped under the skin and stayed there. Not sharp. Not jagged. Just... accumulating. Quiet little weights added to a scale she never used to believe existed.

Now, it sat under her ribs like a second heart.

She'd hoped it would be empty too. That both raids would turn up nothing, and Tom's rage would pass like a summer storm. But some dark, ugly part of her—some twisted, self-preserving nerve—had felt a flicker of relief.

Because it meant her lie held.

Because it meant she'd delivered, in a way.

They'd found something. Not the worst thing. Not the right thing. But something to bleed. Something to burn.

And the people she loved were still safe.

That was all that mattered, wasn't it?

She didn't ask what had happened to Cal Ainsley. She didn't have to.