Chapter 4: The Drawing on the Desk
The afternoon found me in the nursery, where the heavy velvet drapes were pulled back to let in the pale sunlight. Jura sat cross-legged on the floral rug, a box of colored pencils scattered around her like fallen petals. She was drawing on a large sheet of heavy parchment, her tongue slightly caught between her teeth in concentration.
I knelt beside her, my knees clicking against the floorboards. "Whom are you drawing, Jura?"
She didn't look up immediately. She finished shading a dark, jagged shape with a black pencil before lifting her chin. "The man who walks when the clocks stop."
She pushed the parchment toward me. It was a child's drawing, yet the details were chillingly accurate. She had drawn a pair of feet encased in sharp, gleaming shoes with distinctive angled heels. Above them, floating like a phantom, was a hand wearing a heavy gold signet ring—a thick band set with a dark, square stone.
My breath caught in my throat. I knew that ring. Victor wore it every day, the heavy heirloom flashing in the light whenever he handed me the morning post or poured wine at dinner.
"Did you see this in your room, Jura?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"He opened the jewelry box on the dresser," she said simply, picking up a pink pencil and tapping it against her knee. "He was looking for the blue book. The one with the leather cover and the silver lock."
The blue ledger. My father's private journal detailing the estate's true financial holdings—documents I had assumed were safely locked in the study safe.
"Did he take it?"
May you like
Jura shook her head, her dark curls bouncing. "No. Because I sat up and watched him. When he saw me looking, he smiled with his mouth, but his eyes stayed cold like river ice. He told me it was just a dream."
She looked up at me, her young eyes holding an unbearable amount of adult understanding. She wasn't just a child frightened of the dark; she was the sole witness to a quiet, methodical theft of our family's history and security.
