Chapter 23 · Her Other Face

"You were dead."

Kael dropped the file on the safehouse table. Three pages, stamped with the Moonsworn Registry seal. Sienna's hands stayed flat on the armrests of her chair. She didn't reach for it.

"Declared dead," she said. "Not the same thing."

"Your whole bloodline was declared extinct fifteen years ago. Every name on the Hale registry, wiped clean." He flipped to the second page, spun it toward her. "Except someone missed a half-blood daughter. Funny how that works."

Sienna looked at the page. Her mother's name was there, crossed out in red ink. Beneath it, in smaller print, a notation: *Bloodline terminated. No surviving heirs.*

"You knew," she said.

"I knew you lied to get your seat. I didn't know you were supposed to be dead." Kael leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed. "Who signed the termination order?"

"Asher Lockwood."

The name came out flat. Kael's jaw tightened.

"The same Asher Lockwood who's running your retrial hearing," he said.

"The same."

"Then he knows."

"He's always known." Sienna stood, walked to the window. The safehouse was a concrete box on the edge of the industrial quarter, no neighbors, no cameras.