Part 2: The baby screamed until the palace waitress held him, but when he pulled her locket to reveal the dead princess's face, the entire royal wedding plunged into pure terror.

"Tell me it's true," Julian breathed, ignoring the protocol entirely.

He didn't look at Alexander. His eyes were glued to me.

Slowly, Julian walked across the Persian rug. He stopped just two feet away, his chest heaving, his eyes welling with uncontrollable tears. He fell to his knees in front of my chair.

"Eleanor told me before she died," Julian whispered, clutching his chest. "She made me swear that if anything happened to her, I would find the other half of her soul. She knew she was being poisoned, Clara. But she couldn't prove it in time to save herself."

Hearing those words broke the dam inside me. A tear rolled down my cheek, splashing softly onto Oliver’s tiny hand.

"She was looking for me?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

"Every single day," Julian nodded, reaching out with a trembling hand to gently touch the silver locket resting on my chest. "She wore the exact match to this locket. When she went into cardiac arrest, Victoria made sure the locket disappeared from her personal belongings. But Eleanor had already hidden the birth certificate in the encrypted cloud."

Oliver giggled suddenly, swatting playfully at Julian's tousled hair.

The lighthearted sound in the heavy room made Alexander let out a ragged breath. He stood up, towering over us, his presence imposing yet deeply protective.

"Duke Sterling is currently being interrogated by the Counter-Terrorism Command," Alexander announced, checking his encrypted tactical phone. "Victoria is in custody at the Tower Barracks. But we have a constitutional crisis."

Margaret looked up sharply. "The succession."

"Yes," Alexander said, turning toward me. "By royal lineage, as Eleanor's identical twin, Clara is not just a royal princess. She is co-inheritor to the Whitmore Duchy, and under the newly reformed Royal Succession Act, she has legitimate rights to the Regency."

My breath caught in my throat. "No. No, wait. I am a waitress from Baltimore. I pour coffee. I balance trays. I know how to make diner hash browns, Alexander! I don't know how to run a country!"

"You don't have to run it alone," Alexander said softly, his voice dropping to an intimate register that sent a shiver down my spine. "You have your family now. You have Julian. You have Margaret. And... you have Oliver."

As if understanding every word, the little boy wrapped both his arms around my neck, resting his heavy little head against my shoulder, refusing to let go.