The mausoleum had not changed in four years.
The same pale stone. The same iron gate that groaned when Gilbert pushed it wide, the sound carrying across the grounds and thinning out somewhere in the cypress. Arianne stopped at the threshold, one hand on the cold rail, and let the others go ahead of her.
Four years ago she had come here alone. She had stood at the back of a funeral half the city attended for show, waited a full hour after the last car pulled away, and found two children folded into the shadow of this doorway. A girl with both arms around a boy who would not speak. A lion doll held to a small chest like the last solid thing left in the world.
They walked in on their own feet now.
