Read Chapter 6: Mother's Lie

The address book sat between them on the zinc-topped table like a live grenade. Romy had commandeered the corner bistro near the Section's back entrance, a place that smelled of stale coffee and older secrets. She pushed her phone across the table, screen facing Julien.

"Your mother," she said, not unkindly. "Léa Moreau, née Delorme. Deceased, July 2009."

Julien blinked at the glowing text. "I know when my mother died."

"Look at the cause, Jules."

He didn't correct her use of the diminutive. He scanned the document—a scanned death certificate from the Tenth Arrondissement—and felt the floor tilt.

*Cause of death: single-vehicle collision. Minor road, wet conditions, brake failure suspected.*

His mother had died in a car accident. That was the story his father told him, the story he'd carried for fifteen years.

But Julien remembered the bruises. The way the coroner's report—which he'd been too young to read, but had found in his father's study years later—described contusions inconsistent with a steering wheel impact. He remembered the peculiar calm of her face in the open casket, untouched by the violence of a crash. He remembered the smell of ozone that clung to her clothes when they cleared her apartment, a smell he'd never been able to place until he walked into Section 13 for the first time and the air itself hummed with the same charge.

"Falsified," Romy said, reading his face. "Original document flagged 'supernatural incident, cause under review.' The revised certificate was filed three days later. Signed by a Dr. Michel Aubin, who retired and left France six months after, and countersigned by a clerk who's now dead." She let the words hang. "Standard Section protocol for witness protection, but your mother wasn't in witness protection. She was a schoolteacher."

"She was more than that." The words came out before he could stop them.

Romy waited.

Julien's hands curled around his coffee cup, the ceramic warm against his skin. His mother had taught literature at a lycée in the Fifteenth. She'd baked madeleines on Sundays and hummed Edith Piaf while she gardened. She'd also kept a locked drawer in her writing desk that he'd never been allowed to open, a drawer that had been empty by the time the police returned her belongings.

"Three-generation background check," he said finally. "You ran it already."

"I ran the first layer. Efficiency, not paranoia. But the flags came back before I even got to your grandfather's file." She leaned forward, lowering her voice even though the only other patron was a sleeping drunk in the corner. "Your mother's death certificate is one of fifteen documents in Section's archive with authentication markers indicating they were altered by someone inside the organization. All fifteen relate to Moreau family members."

Julien processed this in silence. Someone inside Section 13 had been rewriting his family's history for decades. The same hands that had filed the 1920 werewolf case, that had stamped "CLOSED" on investigation after investigation where a Moreau appeared.

"Who has the authority to alter death certificates?" he asked.

"Almost no one. The Section Archivist, in theory. The Director in practice. That's the list." Romy's dark eyes held his. "Claire Delacroix has been missing for two days. The logbook you found was open to those entries."

"You think she altered the files."

"I think she might have been protecting them until someone like you came looking."

The sleeping drunk shifted, muttered something about singers, and settled back into unconsciousness. Julien's phone buzzed against the table. Unknown number. He declined it.

"We need to focus on Étienne's murder," he said, forcing his voice steady. "The limestone dust, the gargoyle wounds. That's our case."

The phone buzzed again. Same number.

Romy cocked an eyebrow. "You going to get that?"

Julien thumbed the screen. "Moreau residence," he said, his standard greeting for unknown callers.

A voice, distorted by a modulating effect that made it sound like gravel falling through glass: *"The 1874 file. Vampire of the Opera. Look at the witness statement."*

The line went dead. Julien stared at the phone, then at Romy.

"Opera Ghost," he said. "They want me to look at a case from 1874."

Romy's expression flickered. "The Opera investigation. That's one of our foundational files—predates the formal creation of Section 13, actually. It's cited in the charter documents as the case that proved the need for a dedicated supernatural investigative body."

"You know it."

"I know *of* it. It's a class-two sealed file. I've never read the contents, and I know no one who has." She paused. "Why would someone point you there?"

Julien thought of the pocket watch in his jacket, the brass casing warm against his chest. The image of the woman he half-recognized. Élise Garnier, according to the antique dealer. A sacrifice, not a Vein.

"Because my family," he said slowly, "appears in every major investigation in Section history. But I haven't checked the ones before Section existed."

Romy opened her mouth, closed it. She looked at him with something approaching concern.

"Jules, I'm going to give you some advice you'll probably ignore. Whatever trail you're following, its shape is too neat. Someone built this path for you. That means someone wanted you to walk it."

"My father used to say the same thing about rabbit traps."

"Rabbit traps?"

"The neatness isn't proof of a path. It's proof of a predator." Julien stood, sliding money onto the table for the coffees. "I'm going to the archives. Before Verne pulls me onto whatever new case he's got queued."

Romy stood with him, gathering her bag. "I'm coming. If you're about to open a sealed pre-Section file, you're going to want a witness who can vouch you didn't steal it."

They cut through the back streets, the October sky bruising toward dusk above the rooftops. Paris hummed around them—cars, voices, the distant cry of a street performer—but Julien felt insulated from it, cocooned in the growing certainty that his entire life had been a stage direction written by someone else.

His mother had not died in a car accident. His mother had died in a supernatural incident, and someone in Section 13 had erased the truth and buried it with her.

The same Section 13 that had just assigned him a background check.

The same Section 13 whose archivist had vanished after writing *"the first one is still open"* in her logbook.

They entered through the service door, Romy's clearance smooth on the magnetic lock. The archive annex was quiet at this hour, the stacks stretching into dimness, the air cool and dry and smelling of old paper and older leather. Marcel the cataloger was not at his station. The corner where Claire Delacroix's desk should have been was empty, cleared of personal effects as if she had simply ceased to exist.

Romy consulted a terminal, tapping rapidly. "Pre-Section files are cross-referenced under the Brocéliande Index. Delacroix was the only one with physical key access to that vault." She frowned. "But there's a workaround—the emergency access protocol. It requires two rotating Section members to authenticate together. Verne and... you."

Julien's blood chilled. "Verne set up my access?"

"I pulled it up because of your background flag. Someone in personnel pre-authorized you for emergency archival access two days ago, before you even arrived at Section." Romy looked up, her face unreadable. "You were expected, Jules. Long before you ever walked through the door."

The Bruniquel Index room. The 1874 file. A witness statement signed by a woman with his mother's maiden name.

The clock on the wall behind Romy ticked forward.

In his jacket, the brass pocket watch vibrated once—a low resonance he hadn't felt before, like a tuning fork struck in response to a distant note.

The first one was still open.

And it was ringing for him.