The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Unretouched

The Northlight Foundation gave its Artist of the Year award in a hall with two hundred chairs and a chandelier.

Roz stood at the back by the coat check, in the same grey coat she had left Kensington House in.

Beside her, Nina held a flat black case against her chest, and Gabriel held a hard drive in a plastic sleeve.

On the stage, Camille accepted a glass trophy from a man in a bow tie.

She wore white silk and pearl earrings and the face of a girl who had never lifted her voice in her life.

"I want to thank my father," Camille said, and the hall applauded.

Conrad sat in the front row.

Dane sat next to him, looking at his hands.

"I want to thank everyone who believed in the work," Camille said. "Even when it was difficult."

A pause, and a little shake of her head, and two hundred people sighed for her.

"That's her cue," Nina whispered.

Roz walked down the aisle.

A security guard stepped in front of her at the third row, and Conrad lifted a hand without turning his head.

The guard moved aside.

Roz climbed the three steps to the stage.

Camille's smile did not move at all.

"Rosalind," she said into the microphone. "What a lovely surprise."

"I brought you a gift," Roz said.

She had taken the hard drive from Gabriel at the foot of the stairs, and now she held it up.

"Everything I made at Kensington House is on this. Original files, with dates."

A murmur ran through the hall.

"You told me you archived my drives," Roz said. "You never sent them."

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