The attic's pine floorboards swelled under the storm's fury. Ayla's fingers grazed the peachwood handle of the embroidery frame, coming away stained with damp mold. Her mother's iris-patterned linen had been mutilated—silver threads ripped out and replaced with black thorns, each barb stitched with serial numbers from Lucas' mechanical eye. The secret compartment's rusted spring snapped as she pried it open, releasing seventeen letters that fluttered like caged moths set free.
(Fingertips traced envelope edges, their postmark ridges mirroring scars on Lucas' spinal port)
The earliest letter bore June 12, 2003—her rebirth surgery date. Watermark gears embedded with cerulean specks matched the worn teeth of Eric's pocket watch. Rain dripped through roof cracks onto the fabric, dissolving thorn stitches into crimson liquid—Lucas' blood mingled with turpentine and rotting iris roots.
"Miss shouldn't touch that." Eric emerged from specimen-jar shadows, polishing his watch chain with a shriveled burst. "The Young Master delivered these yearly, even after Lady Odile broke three ribs."
Ayla pulled the seventh letter. Its iris-shaped wax seal smeared as Lucas' scrawl bled through damp paper: "Backup analgesics in OR vent's third bracket. Stop using chisels to draw blood—L." She suddenly recalled the painkiller box that appeared during her clavicle infection, its base scrawled with crooked gears.
(Lightning illuminated thorn shadows morse-coding "LIES" on walls)
Lucas materialized behind specimen shelves, new wound oozing gold. His mechanical fingers held a melting candle, wax filling cracks where Ayla once carved "LIAR". Eric's cough rattled as his watch chain snagged the loom—rain revealed watermark gears as Odile's old lab access code.
"The night your mother altered the embroidery," the butler plugged a leak with burst, "she injected the first 'Loyalty Serum' into Young Master's heart."
Ayla tore open the fifth letter. Pressed inside lay a desiccated iris petal. Lucas' handwriting here contorted: "They demanded your pre-rebirth memories. Hid them in that hideous Thorn Wolf statue—please stop smashing it." Thunder crescendoed as she realized—the shattered statue's rubble had always pulsed with her mother's UV lab frequency.
(The burst, red powder seeping into her palm wound)
When Lucas stepped over specimen jars, thorns lashed his ankles like live wires. Black threads sawed into joint seams, leaking cerulean oil. Ayla saw each strand ended in micro-tapes—recordings of Odile forcing him to recite "Betrayal Oaths".
"Post offices...stopped taking handwritten mail." He snapped the thorns, their ashes swirling. "Hired six vagrants to deliver as nostalgia-obsessed lunatics...threw Odile off."
Eric froze mid-polish. The seventh unopened letter slid out, its wax seal stamped with Ayla's mother's fingerprint—postmarked three months after her funeral. The floor tilted, specimen jars rolling toward a creaking. Behind it hung an oil-stained nurse uniform, its chest embroidered with Odile and her mother's girlish smiles, blue ribbons faded to cadaverous mauve.