Chapter 18: A Hidden Legacy

The morning light filtered through the narrow window of the small, modest room that Amelia called home. Her fingers traced the edge of the threadbare curtain as she stared out at the world beyond, her mind clouded with memories of a past that seemed too far removed to be real. She had come to know this feeling well—an almost eerie detachment from the life she had lived before she’d made her own way in the world.

Amelia was not a woman who readily spoke of her past, not even to herself. There were no photographs of her childhood on the walls, no mementos of happier times to remind her of the little girl she once was. Only the quiet, empty spaces that had filled the orphanage she’d spent the majority of her childhood in, and the harsh lessons she’d learned from life’s cruelest realities.