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The opera house. The ruby gown.

You seem very happy here.

A coldness settled beneath my ribs.

“I’ve seen you before,” I said.

Victoria nodded. “Briefly.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone Alexander used to trust.” The answer came without bitterness.

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“No,” she said. “You wouldn’t.”

She looked around the abandoned floor with something that wasn’t quite nostalgia. “This used to be mine.”

“You worked here?”

“Yes. Project Helix.”

“I’ve heard of Helix.”

“Have you?”

“Not much.”

“No,” she said. “Alexander would have seen to that.”

“What happened here?”

“Alexander ended it. When he decided it had to end, he closed this entire floor in less than a week.”

Her gaze returned to mine. “Tell me, how long did Aurora survive once he decided?”

My chest tightened. “This morning.”

Victoria nodded once. “One morning.”

Silence fell between us.

“Project Helix began here, but it was always intended to become much more than a laboratory. I wasn’t a scientist. I never intended to be one. My job was to build something people believed in. I assembled the teams. I secured the funding. I built partnerships. I convinced investors to support research that had not yet changed the world.”

She smiled, though there was no warmth in it. “I was very good at it. Helix was going to be my legacy. Our legacy. Alexander and I were engaged.”

Her jaw clenched, then relaxed. “My name was going to be Victoria Blackwood.”

The woman he had told me about. The woman he had intended to spend his life with. She said it without longing, almost academically, describing a future that had once existed on paper.

“We weren’t simply planning a marriage. We were building something together. Blackwood Hall. Helix. The future.”

She folded her hands loosely in front of her.

“Two researchers fabricated data,” Victoria continued. “The altered results concealed complications that had appeared during the trials.”

“What kind of complications?”