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“They knew Andrew was responsible, yet they could not recover what we stole from him. His death was part revenge, part threat. A message to me to return what we’d taken,” Leonie explains.

“I knew that they couldn’t kill me , not before they confirmed I still had what they wanted.

If I hid it and they killed me, their trail would go cold.

They would run the risk of my heirs coming into Knives’ property along with the gold and jewels in my vault.

Hiding in Volenvell was my best option.”

I nod, remembering her words in Norway. Why would I leave my prison to someone I like ? From her pointed phrasing, I suspected some consideration of the Knives or her own safety confined her to the castle.

“I’ve pushed my limits over the years. Norway, Rothbad.

Sometimes I received coded threats. Sometimes I just knew they were watching,” she explains.

“The reality became clear. With what I stole forever missing, the Knives would never let me out of my confinement. Yet if I returned it to them myself, they would certainly kill me for revenge.” She opens her hands in indication of the castle.

“I was left imprisoned here. Unable to confess, yet unable to escape.”

The truth is in the walls around us. Volenvell was never her fortress or her vault. It was her dungeon.

“And Dash meant freedom,” I say quietly, finishing the puzzle.

“The Knives would release you if you pinned your crimes”—I emphasize with unhidden spite—“on a different accomplice . On someone who knew something about your past that you didn’t want coming out.

Like Dash, who found out Andrew wasn’t his father.

Your freedom and your revenge in one fell swoop. ”

Revenge, I am coming to realize, is the real Owens legacy.

“Dash knows nothing ,” Leonie replies, her self-control shredded.

“Tell me the truth, then,” I implore. “Who is my grandfather?” Could my father be wrong? Maybe Andrew really is my—

“I’m afraid that’s something I really will be taking to the grave.” Her hand reaches for her chest—the necklace she used to wear there. “Do not test me on this. I will have Otto throw you and everyone you brought to the castle out without looking back.”

I read her body language. She’s defensive, ready to flee.

This is not a conversation I can press her on without risking her leaving.

If she leaves now, the heist is over. Still, I fold the information away for future examination.

Dash’s parentage is not just a stain on her reputation.

There is more here, something she will not discuss, not even in the safety and security of her own dungeon.

“Fine,” I concede, relaxing my tone to put her at ease. “There remains one final, imperative question. You hid for thirty years,” I say to Leonie. “And now you—what? Suddenly want to see the world?”

Why orchestrate her ruse now ? Why seek an ending to stories started so long ago? She isn’t really dying, so what more immediate reason did she have to end her imprisonment in the vault of her own making?

Why try to frame my father for a crime he didn’t commit ten years after my grandfather’s death, and decades after the Knives heist itself?

“Suddenly,” Leonie corrects, “I have the opportunity to.”

“Why?” I press her, even though I know the answer perfectly well. “Because you think the Knives have moved on? Forgotten you?”

She nods to my cuff links. “They haven’t, clearly.” Impatient, she presses her hands together. The gesture looks unconsciously like prayer.

For what? I wonder under the dungeon’s lights, the night’s crisp, electrifying calm surrounding us. Peace? Freedom? Vengeance? Damnation?

“I know you figured it out,” she prompts. “It’s why I invited you here, after all.”

I don’t let it wound me, the final proof I wasn’t invited to Volenvell for reunion or reconciliation. Not for Leonie to embrace the granddaughter exiled from her life for the past decade.

No, I was only invited for my part to play in Leonie’s scheme.

It was Jackson who unknowingly helped me put it together. On our last night together, I asked him this remaining question. I told him I didn’t know who to trust. Trust yourself , Jackson had said.

Yourself.

“The answer,” I say, “is me.”

Leonie smiles now. Victorious.

“Your invitation came right after Dash’s wedding,” I recall. “It wasn’t because you regretted missing your son’s third wedding. It was because you knew about my heist.”

Her words in her study confirmed the connection. This isn’t as simple as a safe in your father’s house. Pieces of Leonie’s plan, scattered in front of my uncomprehending investigation. Fragments I could only fit together with every revelation this week has offered.

“Dash was with Andrew when he died, and when you pulled your heist,” I say.

“You could insinuate to the Knives that Dash had really wanted to keep Andrew quiet because of the heist they planned together, and to claim what they stole for himself. He was the perfect person to frame. What you needed was to get the evidence—what you stole from the Knives—onto Dash and deliver him to the Knives, but you couldn’t do it yourself, not while you were confined to Volenvell.

And not while you were too stubborn to invite him home. ”

Leonie glares, and I glimpse new bitterness in her eyes. What must it have done to her, I wonder, to have nowhere but these halls to wander?

I remind myself once more she locked herself into this mountainous prison.

“You needed someone else to do it for you,” I continue quietly. “Someone with determination, cunning, and the desire to ruin Dash.”

Her eyes have gone shrewd. Glittering with greed. Not for money or even for her freedom. Or, not only for her freedom.

No, I know the purest reward is the plan itself . The dizzying consummation of every design, the marvel of the dark power your own mind holds.

“Someone you could summon to Volenvell and manipulate for your own ends right under the Knives’ watch. Someone who could pretend to find your stolen goods in Dash’s safe, or plant them inside, having already cracked it once,” I finish. “You needed me.”

“Who better than his vengeful, scorned daughter who’d just executed her own successful heist?” Leonie replies, half to herself, nearly whispering. “You were everything I needed, Olivia. Exactly what I needed. You were a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

Once-in-a-generation opportunity. The words would have made me proud once.

Kind words from my unkind family used to be my warm poison. My weakness for Leonie to exploit, either intentionally or not. Now, I see beyond them. I don’t need their pride, not when I’m proud of myself .

“But I couldn’t just reach out to you, knowing how much you likely hated your Owens family,” Leonie continues. “I needed to maneuver you into it.”

“Hence your ruse.” I pick up her explanation.

“The photograph. You sent the family photo of us in the courtyard with my invitation. I thought it was sentimental.” The confession nearly makes me laugh.

Sentimental? Leonie Owens is as sentimental as an avalanche.

“But the photograph was the real invitation, wasn’t it?

Inviting my eyes to the tower, to the vault.

An invitation not to your birthday, but to my next heist. It worked. ”

I remember what I thought when I opened my grandmother’s letter. The perfect mark.

How foolish I was. I welcome the shame in, letting it freeze inside me. Hardening into something I’ll never forget.

It’s always for a scheme.

While I was marking Leonie, Leonie was marking me .

“Everything you’ve done this week,” I conclude, “has been for me. Everything to guide me exactly where you wanted.”

I startle when my grandmother claps her hands dramatically. The sound echoes sharply off the dungeon stone.

She eyes me eagerly. She looks utterly, unnervingly delighted. This is the birthday present she’s waited decades for. “Only one piece remains, Olivia,” she goads. “Do you have it?”

I reach into my jacket.

“Of course I do,” I say.

Withdrawing my dagger-cuffed hand, I produce a small envelope. The crisp paper is cream-white under the dungeon lights.

“I have what you stole from the Knives right here,” I say.