The elderly messenger survived the night.

Her name was Ruth Bell, and she had once served as a nurse at Mercy Hollow.

When Eliza demanded to know where her mother was, Ruth answered with a question.

“Do you remember the song she sang when you were frightened?”

Eliza nodded slowly.

“Three little birds beneath the snow.”

Ruth began humming.

Eliza finished the melody without thinking.

The old woman’s eyes filled with tears.

“Then you’re truly Margaret’s daughter.”

Ruth explained that Mercy Hollow had never completely burned.

The chapel and several buildings had been destroyed, but an underground infirmary remained.

Margaret had survived the fire.

However, she had been held captive afterward by the men whose activities she had uncovered.

“Why didn’t she escape?” Eliza asked.

“Because they threatened her children.”

Eliza felt sick.

“All three of us?”

Ruth nodded.

“Your mother believed that if she exposed the truth too soon, the people who had taken your brother and sister would make them disappear.”

Rowan leaned forward.

“Where is Margaret now?”

Ruth’s answer was barely audible.

“At Blackthorn House.”

Rowan went still.

Eliza noticed.

“What is Blackthorn House?”

“A private estate beyond the northern ridge.”

“And?”

Rowan swallowed.

“It belongs to Thomas Vale.”

Eliza felt the room tilt.

Her uncle had kept her mother alive and hidden for seventeen years.

Ruth revealed another terrible detail.

Thomas had been using Margaret’s knowledge of the missing children to locate old records, recover hidden money, and silence anyone who might expose the operation.

But Margaret had secretly continued documenting everything.

And recently, she had found a way to send a message.

Through Caleb.

Eliza stared at Ruth.

“Caleb was helping her?”

“No,” Ruth replied. “He was supposed to deliver a sealed letter to Thomas. Margaret switched the contents.”

“What was in it?”

“The location of the original records.”

Eliza remembered the night Caleb attacked her.

He had been searching her belongings.

He had demanded to know where she had hidden a small brass key.

She had thought he was drunk and angry about money.

Now she understood.

“The key,” she whispered.

Rowan looked at her.

“What key?”

Eliza reached toward the torn hem of her skirt.

Her fingers found a hard object stitched into the fabric.

Before Caleb’s attack, she had discovered the key inside an old sewing box left by her mother.

She had hidden it because Caleb had become obsessed with finding it.

Now she cut the stitches.

A small brass key fell into her palm.

Three tiny birds were engraved on its handle.

Ruth gasped.

“Margaret’s key.”

“What does it open?”

“The room beneath Blackthorn House.”

Rowan stood.

“We leave before dawn.”

Their journey took two days.

They crossed frozen creeks, climbed dangerous slopes, and avoided roads where Thomas’s men might be waiting.

At sunset on the second day, they reached the estate.

Blackthorn House stood behind an iron gate, its windows glowing beneath a storm-dark sky.

Rowan knew a concealed entrance through an abandoned coal cellar.

They slipped inside.

Eliza followed him through a corridor lined with locked doors.

At the end stood a narrow staircase.

Below it was an iron door.

Three birds had been carved into the metal.

Eliza inserted the key.

It turned.

Inside was a room filled with shelves, ledgers, and hundreds of letters.

And in the center sat a woman with silver-streaked hair.

She was writing by candlelight.

The woman looked up.

Her pen fell from her hand.

“Eleanor?”

Eliza couldn’t move.

She knew those eyes.

She had dreamed of them for seventeen years.

“Mother?”

Margaret Vale rose slowly.

Then she crossed the room and embraced her daughter.

For one beautiful moment, the past disappeared.

But Margaret suddenly pulled away.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“Mother—”

“Thomas knows.”

A lock clicked behind them.

Eliza turned.

Caleb stood in the doorway holding a pistol.

Beside him was Uncle Thomas.

Thomas smiled.

“At last,” he said. “The entire family is together.”

Then he looked directly at Rowan.

“Well, almost.”

And from the corridor behind him came a young woman’s voice.

“Father, why have you locked these people in the cellar?”

Eliza looked toward the sound.

The woman standing beside Thomas had her exact face.

Part 4: Click here