I turn back to the window cover and yank again, grunting out in frustration when it refuses to budge. Marco doesn't say anything else as I continue to grapple with the piece. Or if he does, I don't hear it.

"I need to get this out," I bark at him. "She'll be home soon. Her room should be ready. It should have been ready..."

My voice falters, and a hand settles onto my arm, gently guiding me away from the window. Marco helps me down from the sill, meeting my gaze with sorrowful eyes.

"She's gone, sir. I'm so sorry."

A tremor moves through me. I can't accept it. She wouldn't leave me. Ivy hates me, but she wouldn't leave me.

"You're wrong." I brush past him, determined to prove it myself.

Marco follows me all the way down the stairs and to the car still parked in the driveway. When I try and fail to open the door, he unlocks it with the keys in his hand and gently guides me around to the passenger seat.

"I'll drive you, sir."

The ride is quiet. I can't accept that this is anything other than a mistake. Ivy wouldn't do this. She wouldn't take away my light.

Marco pulls up to the curb of The Society hospital and follows me inside. We take the elevator up to the fifth floor, passing the army of guards that has now multiplied under Marco's command. They are scouring the halls, some checking each room and peeking into laundry carts while others interview hospital staff.

I can't focus on any of it. I can only focus on each step. Each breath.

When I enter her room, I come to a halt just past the doorway. Her bed is empty, and a glance inside the bathroom confirms that is too. And for a minute, I don't know what else to do.

Marco lingers beside me, waiting patiently for my sanity to return. But it never does.

I move robotically, a phantom in search of the beating heart that's been ripped from his chest. There's nothing left inside that gaping space. Nothing but agony.

"I was going to make things right," I murmur as my hand settles onto the pillow where she lay this morning. "She would have seen it. The windows. Her new clothes. The lock removed from her bedroom door. I removed the rosary and the mask… I was going to make things right."

Marco has grace enough not to interrupt my fragmented thoughts as I bring the pillow to my face and inhale her scent. I breathe it in, and then it slips from my hands, falling to the floor as my gaze drifts out the window. At the vast city beyond. She is out there somewhere. My wife and our child.

I turn to Marco, a familiar anger steeling me against these unrecognizable weaknesses stirring up inside me.

"Where is Abel?"