Three dawns hence, the Grandeur’s royal suite sighs open, welcoming the wounded wolf and his raven queen. Derek, arm bound in silk, ushers Ravenelle over the threshold with a chivalrous hand at the small of her back.

“Derek, darling, I’m not some invalid. ‘Tis you who should be abed, mending,” Ravenelle chides, but her barbs are blunted by the tenderness oozing from every pore.

“And forsake your glorious return? I’d sooner perish.” Derek’s grin is a secret shared, a spark struck between kindred souls. He pours champagne one-handed, a dexterous dance.

Ravenelle sinks into the divan’s decadent embrace, a queen reclaiming her throne. Beyond the windows, the sun bleeds out across the skyline, a slow, agonizing death.

“The Penthouse of the Damned, purged from the pages of history…almost a shame. Those parquet floors were to die for,” she muses, irony dripping from her tongue. Derek’s chuckle is a dark rumble.

“He thought you a mere pawn to be played. As have so many would-be kings. Will they never learn the folly of poking a sleeping dragon?”

Ravenelle’s smile is a mourning veil, a shroud of sorrow. “For my sake, I pray they never do…”

Silence settles, a comfortable cloak, as they watch the city succumb to shadow’s sway. This metropolis, bloated with secrets, owes its continued existence to the woman the elite both exalt and execrate for her preternatural prowess at pruning scandals before they blossom. All that remains: a glimmering pendant and whispers of her legend, furtively traded in smoky back rooms…

BANG!

The doors explode inward, a violent violation. Ravenelle and Derek spring apart, twin predators poised to pounce. There, framed in the hallway’s harsh light like a revenant of sins past, stands Amanda – feral, frayed, a pistol clutched in her trembling hands.

“Amanda!” Ravenelle breathes, a benediction and a curse. She rises slowly, hands splayed in supplication. “You live. There’s been a misunderstanding…”

“Misunderstanding?!” Amanda’s shriek is a banshee’s wail, raw and ragged. “You doped me on a train to nowhere and I wake chained in some asylum!” The gun judders towards Ravenelle, a metal finger of accusation.

“Steady on,” Derek soothes, a lion tamer facing a rabid beast.

“QUIET!” Amanda whirls on him, a dervish of desperation –

Ravenelle strikes, a cobra’s kiss. She seizes Amanda’s wrist, wielding the girl’s own momentum to dash her against the unforgiving floor. A stiletto kiss at her jugular and a single sibilant command:

“Talk.”

Amanda squirms, a pinned butterfly on the Oriental rug. The tale spills out of her in fits and starts…

“The hospital…kept me doped to the gills,” she gasps, each word a Herculean effort. “But the orderly got sloppy. Swiped his keys and gun, fled through the basement like a rat.”

Her eyes roll wildly, yearning for a glimpse of Ravenelle’s stoic mask.

“Came back to find my life erased! Accounts frozen, ID gone! I demand answers, dammit! Where did you send me? Why?”

Ravenelle sighs, a gust of arctic wind. She relents, freeing Amanda from her pin, though coiled to strike at the slightest provocation. “I engineered your exodus, it’s true. But for your own good, foolish girl. Surely you grasp that men like Sinclair brook no loose ends?”

Amanda sags, fight fleeing her body. Derek scoops her into an armchair where she crumples like a broken doll.

“So that’s it? I can never go back? My entire existence, wiped away like a stray smudge?” A desolate whisper, the last embers of hope guttering out.

Ravenelle kneels before her, a supplicant at the altar of anguish. “No, my dear. Not an end, but a beginning. A chance to shed the skin of past missteps and emerge reborn. A gift I’ve bestowed upon a legion of lost souls far more tarnished than you.”

She clasps Amanda’s hand, a lifeline in the abyss. “Come. Let us forge you a future from the ashes of yesteryear…”

A glimmer kindles in Amanda’s eyes, a lone star in the void. Beyond the windows, the dying of the light paints the sky in abattoir hues, the Grandeur’s guardian eternal and unassailable.

One cycle of the moon later, Amanda stands sentinel over a cottage kissed by the sea, salt spray stinging her cheeks. The deed bears her name – Amanda Bell, mistress of her own destiny at last. The cottage is a haven, plucked from a fairy tale, and the bank account ensures her independence forevermore. After an existence bound by the whims of others, the freedom is dizzying.

Strong arms envelop her from behind, Derek’s embrace a bulwark against the world’s cruelty. In the wake of the tempest, he extended an olive branch, which blossomed into the tender shoots of romance.

“I scarce believe it. A new life, with a man of valor at my side,” Amanda murmurs, marveling at the vagaries of fate.

“A rare gift, not to be squandered. Though I do relish absconding with you as my own precious secret.” Derek’s nuzzle is playful, provoking peals of giddy laughter.

From the cottage stoop, Ravenelle regards the lovers, a living tableau against the cerulean sea. The final brushstroke on her canvas, the last note of her symphony. Amanda turns to her, radiance incarnate.

“How can I ever hope to repay your benevolence, Ms. Ravenelle? How did you even achieve such a feat?”

An enigmatic smile, a Sphinx’s riddle. “I have my methods.” Her eyes promise mysteries mere mortals dare not plumb. With a nod, an unspoken benediction, she melts into the obsidian embrace of her waiting Jaguar. The cottage dwellers watch in silence as the vehicle vanishes into the vast beyond, bearing away the cipher, the sphinx, the sorceress…

Ravenelle, weaver of destinies, keeper of secrets.

Ravenelle, raven-crowned ruler of the Grandeur’s shadow realm.

Ravenelle, who haunts their memories like a half-remembered dream, forever dancing just beyond the reach of recollection.

A creature of myth and majesty, ne’er to be forgotten.

Long may she reign in the hearts of those she’s touched…and destroyed.

The End? Not By A Long Shot, Kiddo.