"The silver room. Were you aware?"

"I knew Vera took Lily to the basement sometimes. Lily would come back quiet. I told myself it was discipline. I told myself all grandmothers were strict. I told myself a lot of things because the alternative was admitting what I already knew and doing something about it, and I was too afraid for that."

"Did Declan know Lily wasn't your biological child?"

"He never asked. That's worse, isn't it?"

I put the transcript down. My hands were flat on the table, pressing hard enough that my knuckles had gone white, and I hadn't noticed until now.

Petra. Twenty-two years old, handed a stolen baby and a lie, married to a man who didn't want to look closely at anything because looking closely might require him to act. I could construct the version of her that was a villain — the woman who raised my child at arm's length, who let Vera take a five-year-old into a silver-lined basement and told herself it was discipline. That version was true. But underneath it was another version, also true: a young woman trapped in a house with Vera, married to a man whose primary skill was not-asking, learning that survival in Silverpine meant accepting whatever story you were given and never, ever reaching for the real one.

I couldn't forgive her. I could understand her. Those are different things.

Kieran called an hour later. Torren held the phone toward me. I took it.

"Petra confirmed she's not the biological mother," Kieran said. His voice was flat — the professional flatness of someone delivering facts that had personal weight, choosing not to let that weight show. "Her testimony is recorded and witnessed. Combined with the medical records, it's sufficient for a preliminary bloodline challenge."

"I didn't need her confirmation," I said. "I knew the first time Lily turned her head and I saw my own face."

Silence on the line. Not awkward — weighted.

"What I need," I continued, "is my daughter's name on my bloodline record. Official. Permanent. Recognized by the Council and every pack in the registry."

"That will require a formal hearing."

"Then schedule one. And I need something else." I paused. Not for drama — for precision. What I was about to say needed to land exactly right. "I need every wolf in Silverpine to know what he did. Not a rumor. Not a whisper passed between omegas in the kitchen. A formal finding. Documented. Public. So that when Declan walks into a room for the rest of his life, every wolf in it knows he exiled his mate and stole her child."

Another silence. Longer this time. I heard Kieran exhale — not a sigh, not frustration, just a man processing the scope of what was being asked and measuring it against what was justified.

"The evidence supports it," he said finally.

"I know."

I handed the phone back to Torren. He looked at me the way he sometimes did — not with concern, exactly, but with the quiet alertness of someone who's spent six years watching me hold things together and can see the hairline fractures better than anyone.

"You good?" he asked.

"I'm functional." I sat back down. "That's enough for now."