Chapter 15
I returned to the chapel alone one year later.
The lower cabinet was empty.
The six rings had been melted.
Not dramatically.
A jeweler reduced them to plain metal.
I used part to repair the chapel gate hinges.
Rafe found that hilarious.
“Secret council becomes hardware.”
Appropriate.
The cabinet stayed unlocked.
Nothing inside.
My father’s cassette had been copied and shared with the few family members whose names it affected.
No single hidden recording would control history again.
The brass key remained with me for a while.
Then Livia found it on my desk.
“What key?”
“Old cabinet.”
“Treasure?”
I smiled.
“Kind of.”
“Can I have?”
I almost said no.
Then realized it opened nothing important anymore.
I gave it to her.
She added it to a box containing plastic rings, stickers, one dead marker, and something that might once have been a cookie.
Perfect.
A secret key becoming junk.
That was progress.
Weeks later I found it missing.
“Where’s Grandpa’s key?”
Livia shrugged.
“Lost.”
I laughed for almost a minute.
My father hid that object inside porcelain for years.
Camilla assaulted a child because she feared what it would reveal.
Marco tried to take it.
The Second Table collapsed around it.
My daughter lost it somewhere between crayons.
May you like
Exactly right.
Not every relic deserves survival.
