The spell broke, and just like that, she could see everything with fresh eyes…

The walls of the manor that once felt like home now loomed like relics of a life she no longer recognized. The velvet curtains, the crystal chandeliers, the paintings that never blinked, all of it shimmered under a truth that had been hiding in plain sight.

Evelyn staggered back from the mirror where the spell had cracked. Not shattered, just enough to let in the light. Her breath caught. She had thought she’d been protecting herself from pain, shielding her heart from a memory too large to hold.

But it hadn’t been protection. It had been illusion.

She walked the hallways slowly, bare feet brushing the cold stone floors. Portraits watched her with eyes that now seemed sad rather than noble. She passed the nursery door, it opened before her. No magic this time. Just a creak of old hinges and a gust of air thick with dust and time.

Inside, the cradle stood untouched.

She remembered now.

The child she had forgotten.

The price she had paid.

When the grief came, it didn’t roar. It sighed. A low, deep ache that moved through her like a wave. She sank to her knees beside the cradle and wept, not with the horror of someone discovering a lie, but with the strange peace of someone finally reclaiming the truth.

Outside, dawn touched the horizon.

And as the first light slipped through the window and landed on her skin, Evelyn stood up older, wiser, whole. Not cursed. Not hollow.

Just awake.