Chapter 2 - The Echoes of the Past
Julian didn’t stay for dessert. He kissed Victoria's cheek, whispered a polite excuse about an early morning shift, and escaped the suffocating velvet walls of the Sterling estate. He took the subway back to his neighborhood, watching the glittering skyscrapers fade into the grit and graffiti of his reality.
He lived above a dusty antiquarian bookstore owned by his grandfather, Arthur. When Julian pushed the heavy oak door open, the bell chimed, breaking the midnight silence. Arthur was at his desk in the back, hunched under the yellow glow of a reading lamp, a magnifying glass in his trembling hand.
"You're home early," Arthur rasped, not looking up from the leather-bound ledger he was inspecting. "The blue-bloods bore you?"
"Something like that," Julian sighed, loosening his bowtie and tossing the rented jacket over a chair. He slumped onto a stool near the register. "Victoria's grandmother... Beatrice. She made it pretty clear I'm a virus in their gene pool."
At the mention of the name, Arthur’s hand froze. The magnifying glass clattered against the wood. The older man lifted his head, his cloudy eyes suddenly sharp, piercing through the dim light of the shop.
"Beatrice," Arthur whispered. "Beatrice Sterling?"
"Yeah. You know her?" Julian asked, frowning.
Arthur closed the ledger slowly. He stared past Julian, looking at ghosts only he could see. "Everyone in this city knows the Sterlings, Julian. But few know how they got that way." Arthur stood up, his joints popping, and walked over to a locked iron safe in the corner of the room. He began spinning the dial.
"Grandpa, what are you doing?"
"I raised you to work hard, Julian. To be honest. To keep your head down," Arthur said, his voice trembling with an emotion Julian couldn't identify. Was it fear? Or rage? "But there are times when keeping your head down just exposes your neck to the guillotine."
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The safe clicked open. Arthur reached inside and pulled out a stack of yellowed, fragile documents tied with a faded red ribbon. He walked over and dropped them onto the counter in front of Julian.
"Beatrice Sterling told you that you don't belong in that house," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "She's lying. You belong in that house more than she does."
