Chapter 3: Shadows In The Nursery Wing
The nursery wing of the estate smelled faintly of warmed milk, lavender baby wash, and expensive cedar. Outside the tall, shuttered windows, the city's neon bled into the dark American night, casting long, bruised bars of orange light across the plush rug. Nico lay fast asleep in his mahogany crib, his chest rising and falling in rhythmic, shallow movements. His little blue pajamas puffed slightly with every breath. I pulled the heavy wool blanket a fraction higher over his shoulders, my fingers lingering for a second against his soft cheek before I stepped back into the shadows of the room.
Mr. Varric had given me the adjoining suite—a small, tidy room originally meant for a live-in nurse—with strict instructions to keep the boy settled. But sleep was impossible. The silence of the mansion felt heavy, weighted by the four guards stationed somewhere down the marble hall and the lingering shock of what had happened downstairs. I still felt the phantom weight of Nico against my chest, and the strange, electric hum of Mr. Varric's gaze when he realized his son had stopped crying for me alone.
I padded softly across the hardwood floor in my stockings, my maroon uniform skirt rustling faintly. Near the corner of the nursery sat a heavy walnut partner's desk, its surface cluttered with baby monitors, humidifiers, and a stack of unopened medical pamphlets. I hadn't meant to snoop. My hand simply reached out to steady a rattling lamp, and my fingers brushed against a stack of thick, heavy-stock manila folders tucked beneath a blotter.
The label on the top tab was typed in crisp, clinical capitals: CUSTODY LITIGATION - IN RE: NICO V. VARRIC.
My breath caught. I glanced toward the crib, reassuring myself that the baby was still breathing deeply before I slid the top folder open. The pages inside were dense with legal jargon, emergency injunctions, and petitions filed by an opposing counsel I didn't recognize. Paragraph after paragraph detailed a bitter, scorched-earth battle for sole guardianship. But what stopped my pulse entirely was a secondary file labeled CORRESPONDENCE - UNKNOWN/ABSENT PARTY. It contained police reports, missing persons bulletins, and a redacted birth certificate with my exact county of birth listed under maternal lineage.
Before I could turn a page to read further, a quiet click echoed from the doorway.
I froze, the heavy paper trembling slightly in my grip.
Mr. Varric stood in the doorway. He had stripped off his suit jacket and tie; his white shirt was unbuttoned another two buttons at the collar, revealing the sharp, tired hollow of his throat. He looked exhausted. The hard, untouchable armor he had worn in the foyer was gone, replaced by the heavy, sunken eyes of a man who hadn't slept a full night in weeks. He looked at the desk in my hands, then at me. There was no flash of anger in his expression, only a dull, resigned weariness.
"You shouldn't be reading those," he said. His voice was a low, gravelly murmur that barely carried over the hum of the humidifier.
"You left them out," I whispered back, my heart hammering against my ribs. I didn't drop the folder. I held my ground, though every instinct told me to run. "Mr. Varric, what is this? Who are they looking for?"
He pushed himself off the doorframe and walked slowly into the room, keeping his distance from the crib so as not to wake his son. He stopped a few feet away, shoving his hands deep into his dark trouser pockets. He stared down at the floor for a long moment before looking up, his eyes stark and transparent in the dim lamplight.
"They're looking for a ghost," Varric said quietly, the bitterness in his tone entirely replaced by exhaustion. "Or someone who walked away. My family has spent the last six months trying to prove I'm an unfit father, using every legal loophole and hired gun they can afford. They claim the mother abandoned him. They claim the boy isn't safe here." He paused, his jaw tightening as he looked over at the crib. "And looking at the state of this house, sometimes I've wondered if they were right."
"And the mother?" I asked, my voice barely above a breath. "Did she?"
Varric looked back at me, his gaze sharp, assessing, and stripped of all pretense. "That's what I've been trying to figure out since the day she vanished. And it's the exact reason you're standing in this nursery right now."
He didn't demand the files back. He didn't threaten to call the guards waiting in the hall. He simply turned slowly toward the door, pausing with his hand on the brass knob.
May you like
"Get some sleep," he said softly without turning around. "Tomorrow, the real fight starts."
The door clicked shut, leaving me alone in the dark with the rustle of papers and a sleeping child.
