Chapter 9 The Lilly House

The address led me to the edge of Los Feliz, where the streets curled like secrets and every house seemed to remember something you didn't.

The Lily House sat behind a rusted iron gate, choked in vines and silence. The sign above the stone post was barely legible; the letters were faded but still elegant.

Lily House. Est. 1909.

The place didn't look lived in. It looked watched. Two stories, pale shutters, windows covered in lace that hadn't yellowed like the rest of the building. There was no car in the drive. No mail in the box. Just a sense of waiting.

The gate was unlocked.

I pushed it open slowly.

It didn't creak.

The walkway was uneven, cracked like something underneath had shifted over time. I stepped carefully, heart too loud in my chest. Every part of me felt like it was walking into something sacred. Or haunted.

The front door wasn't locked either.

It opened on the first try.

Inside, the air was still. Not stale. Just quiet. Like a museum no one had the nerve to close.

The foyer was small. A round rug. An old clock. A single table with a vase that held fresh lilies.

That stopped me cold.

Someone had been here. Recently.

The house didn't smell abandoned. It smelt of soft perfume and old paper. It smelt like memory.

I stepped deeper, heels muffled by thick carpeting. The wallpaper was pale blue with tiny silver threads, aged but not torn. Family photos lined the hall, none with faces I recognised. All black and white. All angled just enough to feel deliberate.

This wasn't a house that had been forgotten.

This was a house waiting for the right person to remember it.

And something about the stillness told me I wasn't the first to come back.

The stairs creaked like they'd been waiting for a name. Each step felt heavier than the last, like the house knew me and wasn't sure how it felt about that.

Upstairs, the hallway was lined with closed doors, all but one. That one was slightly ajar. Lit from within by soft, natural light spilling through the curtain lace like a memory caught in a jar.

I pushed the door open with my fingertips.

The room smelt of lavender and old starch.

Not a speck of dust.

Not a single cobweb.

Someone had kept it ready.

A vanity stood by the window, its mirror intact, untouched. The brushes were still laid out beside it, ivory handles worn smooth by familiar hands. There was a jewellery box closed. A perfume bottle... half full. A pair of gloves folded neatly on the bedspread, palms up, like waiting hands.

And hanging on the back of the chair... my mother's dress.

I knew it before I even touched it.

A green silk wrap with tiny black buttons, the one she'd worn in the photo Halvorsen showed me. The one I'd never seen in real life but knew anyway, the way you know your own name whispered in a dark room.

My throat tightened.

I opened the closet. Inside were more dresses, more shoes. All in her size.

She'd lived here. Not just visited.

She'd had a life I never knew about.

And she'd wanted someone to find it.

On the dresser, a small wooden box sat with its lid open.

Inside: photographs.

Most of them are black and white, edges curled with time. Her, alone. Her with people I didn't know. Her with a man face turned away. One photo had been ripped down the middle. Half a woman's face. Half of what might've been a kiss.

I held the box to my chest and sat on the edge of the bed.

The room didn't feel like a ghost story anymore.

It felt like a love story someone had tried to erase.

I didn't hear her until I was halfway down the stairs.

A voice. Cool. Polished. From the parlour just off the foyer.

"You shouldn't be here alone, you know."

I froze.

She was already seated when I entered,, legs crossed, gloved hands resting on a cane she clearly didn't need. Her hair was a careful white-blonde, her lipstick a vintage red that said she'd been in the room longer than I had and didn't mind making me feel like I was late to my own party.

She wore a grey suit with a brooch shaped like a sparrow. Her posture belonged to someone who had spent time hiding knives in compliments.

"Margot", she said, before I could speak. "Margot Bellamy. Your mother called me her shadow. I called her reckless."

I said nothing at first. Just stood by the doorway, one hand still on the frame.

"She left this for me," I said eventually.

"She left it for whoever had the nerve to come back," Margot corrected. "Looks like that's you."

I stepped inside.

"You knew her?"

"I knew her before you did. Helped train her. Fed her names. Covered her tracks."

"Why stay?" I asked.

Margot tilted her head. "Because she made me promise."

"To protect this place?"

"To protect you."

That took the air out of the room.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a small envelope. Yellowed. Sealed with wax.

"She said to give this to you when you came. And not a second before."

She handed it over.

I didn't open it.

Not yet.

"I have questions," I said.

"You will have more after you read that," Margot said.

Then, softly, "But be careful. Some answers carry teeth."

The envelope stayed closed in my hand like a loaded question.

Margot watched me with eyes that had seen too many endings and too few beginnings. She leaned back on the parlour chaise, graceful despite the decades tucked behind her posture.

"There were three of us," she said. "Me. Your mother. And a woman named Leona Vex."

"Vex", I echoed. "That's real?"

"As real as poison," Margot said.

"We operated under a loose agreement-no countries, just causes. In Berlin, we worked black files. Burnt intel. Bought silence. Your mother passed secrets. I documented it. Leona... leveraged."

"Leona's the one who betrayed her," I said.

Margot didn't blink. "She traded names to Bishop. For immunity. Or power. Or maybe just to see who bled."

My fingers tightened around the envelope.

"And the third?"

"She's still breathing," Margot said. "Hiding in the open. The only one who knows what Bishop's really building."

I swallowed. "Why hasn't she come forward?"

"Because she's afraid of what happens when the world hears her voice again."

She reached for a cigarette case and lit one with a match that hissed like it had something to say.

"If you find her, she might give you the last piece."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll become what your mother tried to avoid being."

"What's that?"

Margot exhaled a ribbon of smoke.

"A warning."

Margot didn't follow me upstairs.

She didn't need to.

The air had changed since I first walked through the house. Like it had taken a breath, held it, and was waiting to see what I would do next.

I passed the bedroom again, the green dress still hanging like a ghost against time. The photograph box was exactly where I left it. But the mirror down the hall – something was different.

It had writing on it now.

Lipstick. Red. Slanted letters across the fogged glass like a whisper written in heat.

You already know who it is.

I stared at it.

No smudges. No prints.

Not fresh but not faded either.

Someone had written it with purpose.

Someone who had been here.

I reached for the doorknob just as a sound came from downstairs.

Not Margot.

A knock.

Not a loud one. But firm.

I moved slowly, heels silent on the carpet, the letter still in my hand, the mirror's message burning behind my eyes.

I opened the door.

Frank stood there.

No hat. No coat. Just his eyes, sharp and tired and too full of things he hadn't said.

"I followed you," he said.

I didn't pretend to be surprised.

"I know", I said.

He looked past me, into the house.

"You found something."

"I found everything," I said.

He nodded once. Then asked, quietly:

"Do you still trust me?"

I didn't answer.

I just stepped aside.

And let him in.