I was wearing my mother's pearls when my brother brought home the girl who would steal my entire life. It was my eighteenth birthday. The house was full of white roses and champagne glasses catching the afternoon light. Julian had just squeezed my hand under the table, that secret promise we'd been making since we were kids—soon, we'd make it official. Soon, we'd announce our engagement. Then Marcus walked through the door. My older brother, twenty-five and always so serious, stood in the entryway with his hand on the shoulder of a girl who looked exactly like me. Same dark hair. Same gray eyes. Same small scar above the left eyebrow from the swing set accident when we were six. Except I got that scar alone. "Elara," Marcus said, and his voice cracked in a way I'd never heard before. "I found her. I found Seren." The room went silent. Someone dropped a glass. My twin sister. The one who was taken from our front yard when we were three years old. The one we'd mourned for fifteen years. The one whose empty bedroom we kept locked on the third floor like a shrine. She was standing in our foyer, wearing clothes that didn't fit right and looking at me with wide, confused eyes. "I don't remember," she whispered. "I don't remember anything before yesterday." I should have felt joy. Relief. Something warm and sisterly. Instead, I felt cold. Because the way Marcus was looking at her—protective, obsessed, guilty—that wasn't the look of a brother who'd found his lost sister. That was the look of a man who'd found his purpose. And I knew, even then, that it would cost me everything. Mom rushed forward, crying. Dad stood frozen, his face pale. Julian's hand slipped from mine as he stared at Seren like she was a ghost made flesh. "We'll take care of you," Marcus said to her, his voice fierce. "We'll give you everything you lost. Everything you deserve." Seren looked at me then, really looked at me, and smiled. It was a small smile. Grateful. Innocent. But it didn't reach her eyes. "Thank you," she said softly. "I just want to feel like I belong somewhere." Marcus turned to me. "Elara, Seren will need your room. Yours has the best light, and she needs to feel comfortable. You understand, don't you?" I opened my mouth to protest, but Mom was already nodding through her tears. "Of course," Mom said. "Elara can take the guest room. Seren needs stability." Just like that, on my eighteenth birthday, I stopped being the daughter who mattered. Julian finally spoke. "This is incredible. Elara, your sister is home." But he wasn't looking at me when he said it. He was looking at her.