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T HE DAY FINDS ME DOING SOMETHING I NEVER EXPECTED. I HANG out with my manipulative mastermind grandmother, and I enjoy myself.

We sit in the steam for hours. When the water overheats us, we relocate to the chairs positioned overlooking the sublime snowy view.

We pause our discussion when family members venture over for half-hearted interactions with Leonie.

Elwood lasts the longest, extolling the fjord’s lighting conditions for her paintings, promising Leonie her career’s creative renaissance will spring from the pastel-hued ice.

Leonie responds with noncommittal politeness.

I’m surprised how easily conversation comes with her.

I hear stories of her childhood. Revealing details, like how she’d once been locked in the Volenvell dungeon, too—it had been accidental, but it had shaped her.

Memories of the year she’d lived in London—the startling hint of regret when she explains how her family had effectively ordered her home, considering her burgeoning interest in photography unbecoming of the twenty-year-old heiress.

I share my own lackluster college possibilities. The handful of East Coast schools listed on the wall of East Coventry High’s college counseling center.

Skip it , my grandmother recommends. Read books. Enjoy concerts. Explore the world as if it’s your university .

Outside the prism of the spa, daylight shimmers over the fjord. Eventually, we return to the heated pool.

It’s half past three when Leonie says she’s going in. I realize I’m… disappointed.

I follow her from the water slowly, letting her reach our robes first. She pulls hers on. Then she reaches for mine. When she holds it open for me to step into, I feel something like maternal kindness in the gesture.

Or maybe it’s possessiveness. My family often mixes those up.

I slide my arms into the soft garment. As I comb my fingers through my hair, I pull my necklace out from beneath my swimsuit. When I face Leonie, her eyes snag exactly where I intended.

My diamond pendant.

The one Jackson stole for me during the wedding heist. The one Andrew Owens willed to his favorite granddaughter.

My inheritance. Entangled in love, loss, and larceny.

Leonie lifts the stone with gentle fingers. “The one diamond Andrew kept from our collection.” She sighs. “He and I had many differences, but sometimes, very rarely, very miraculously, we would come together on something. That was always when I felt the richest.”

Relaxing her grip, Leonie lets the pendant, heavy with memories, fall lightly to my chest.

“You were his favorite,” she informs me. “I didn’t expect you would be mine, too.”

Her eyes return to mine. For once, the cutting clarity in them looks less like ice, more like gemstones. Speechless, I secure my robe with warm hands while Leonie retreats into the inn.

I wait.

When minutes have passed, I enter the empty hallway, heading in the other direction. Outside the windows, the snow shines white.

Only when I’m in my room do I reach my hand into the pocket of my robe, fingering the ring resting there.

I performed the switch while Leonie ordered lunch. On the pretense of checking my cell phone, I groped frantically in her robe’s pockets in the mere seconds of her distraction. Relief rushed into me when I grasped polished silver.

For hours, I pretended nothing had changed. I continued our pleasant conversation. I waited for Leonie to decide to leave the pool. I even let Leonie return to the robes first while I followed innocently, earning her trust enough that Leonie put the robe containing the ring on me herself.

Now, in my room, I read the engraving, memorizing the combination. When I place the necklace around my neck, over my grandfather’s diamond, I feel too much like my grandmother herself.