Chapter 4 — Secrets in the East Wing

Kimberley

The East Wing Library was cloaked in the kind of silence Kimberley Mae Blossom had come to cherish—a silence not born of emptiness but of secrets waiting to be uncovered. Every creak of a wooden shelf, every faint rustle of pages caught in a draft, seemed to carry whispers of stories untold. Tonight, the library was hers alone—or so she thought.

Moonlight spilled through the stained-glass windows, painting the polished floors in fractured mosaics of red, gold, and blue. Kimberley’s satin slippers moved soundlessly across the wood as she approached the farthest corner of the room, where the cabinet stood. Her heart thrummed, a restless rhythm that matched the soft *click* of her gilded hairpin as she turned it over between her fingers.