Chapter 1: Inheritance

The fog woke me.

It pressed against the glass walls of the house like a living thing, gray and dense and hungry. I could feel it even with my eyes closed—the way it muted the light, softened the edges of the world, turned the Pacific into a suggestion rather than a roar. The glass house was beautiful in the fog. It was also a fishbowl. I’d known that my whole life.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling was a sheet of frosted glass, streaked with condensation. I could see the silhouette of a seagull perched above me, its head cocked, watching. The bird had no idea it was looking at a naked fourteen-year-old girl in her bed. It wouldn’t have cared if it did.

I sat up. The sheets fell away. The air was cold, but I barely noticed. I’d been cold my whole life. It was just ... temperature. It wasn’t uncomfortable anymore. It was the texture of my existence.

The glass house was quiet. The ocean was distant today, muffled by the fog. I could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator, the drip of water from the roof. The sounds of a normal morning in a house that was anything but.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet touched the concrete floor. It was cold. I didn’t care.

The walk to the bathroom was a journey through glass. The walls of the house were almost entirely transparent, designed by my father to reveal everything. There were no curtains. No blinds. No privacy, even in the shower. That was the point. The house was a testament to transparency, a monument to the philosophy that had defined my entire existence.

I caught my reflection in the sliding glass door that led to the deck. A girl, pale and thin, with dark hair and dark eyes and nothing else. I looked like a ghost. I looked like myself. I’d never known any other way to be.

“Cass.”

Anthea’s voice floated down the hallway. My oldest sister. The zealot. The inheritor.

“Breakfast at ten.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. In the glass house, everything was visible, everything was heard, everything was known.

The shower was a rectangle of glass and tile. There was no curtain. There never had been. I stood under the spray and let the water run over my skin. I could feel the heat penetrating, warming the cold places I’d carried with me since birth. The water was a kind of armor, temporary and permeable. It was better than nothing.

I dried off with a towel that was rough and thin. My mother bought them from a store that specialized in “austere living.” Everything in the house was austere. Everything was intentional. Everything was a statement.

I walked to the kitchen.

The kitchen was the heart of the house, if the house could be said to have a heart. It was a long, open space with a granite island, stainless steel appliances, and a wall of windows that looked out at the ocean. The fog had thinned, and I could see the dark water churning below. The glass was cold against my bare skin when I passed.

Anthea was at the stove, making eggs. She was eighteen, though she looked older—sharp and angular, with her father’s pale blue eyes and her mother’s dark hair. She was also naked, like me. Like all of us. In the glass house, clothing was a costume, reserved for the outside world.

“We have to discuss the play,” she said, without turning around. Her voice was a blade, sharp and precise. “Beatrice and I have been talking. You need to be prepared.”

I sat on the island. The stool was cold against my thighs. I didn’t flinch.

“I’m always prepared,” I said.

Anthea turned. She looked at me with an expression that was almost, but not quite, pity. “You’re not. You think you are. But you’re not.”

The door to the hallway opened. Beatrice appeared, her arms full of sketchbooks. Beatrice was sixteen, two years younger than Anthea and two years older than me. She was the artist, the dreamer, the one who looked at the world and saw composition and light. She was also naked, her skin dusted with charcoal and paint.

“Don’t start the argument without me,” she said. She dropped her sketchbooks on the counter and slid onto the stool next to mine. She smelled like turpentine and graphite. “I want to see Cass’s face when you tell her.”

“Tell me what?” I asked.

Anthea set a plate of eggs in front of me. The eggs were perfect, as always. “The play,” she said. “It’s happening. It’s real. And it’s going to be announced tomorrow.”

I picked up my fork. My hand was steady. Inside, something was moving, shifting, preparing.

“I know,” I said. “I’ve known for months.”

Anthea froze. Beatrice raised an eyebrow.

“How?” Anthea asked.

“Because I hear things. I notice things. You and Lydia have been having meetings. Mom has been walking around with that look on her face. The look she gets when something is about to happen.” I took a bite of eggs. “I’m not stupid, Anthea. I just don’t always tell you what I know.”

The silence stretched. The fog pressed against the windows.

“What do you think you know?” Beatrice asked. Her voice was careful, neutral.

“That Dad’s old colleague wrote a play about us. That it’s going to be performed at SOTA. That we’re going to be in it.” I put down my fork. “And that we’re going to be naked.”

The word hung in the air, naked itself. Unadorned. Unashamed.

Anthea recovered first. “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what’s happening.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Beatrice asked. She was looking at me with something I hadn’t seen before. Respect, maybe. Or curiosity. “You’re not scared?”

I thought about the question. I thought about fear. I thought about what it meant to be afraid of something you’d been preparing for your entire life.

“I don’t know what I am,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve felt anything in years. It’s like my emotions are wrapped in cotton. Like there’s a barrier between me and the world.” I paused. “Maybe that’s why Dad did what he did. Maybe he wanted to break through the barrier. Maybe he wanted to feel something real.”

Anthea and Beatrice exchanged a look. It was the look they always exchanged when I mentioned our father. Grief and guilt and something else. Something I couldn’t name.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Anthea said. “For now, we need to prepare for the announcement.”

“Prepare for what?” I asked. “I’m already prepared. I’ve been preparing my whole life.”

The words came out harder than I’d intended. The cotton was thinning. I could feel something underneath. Something sharp.

Anthea studied with me. “You’re not the scared little girl I thought you were,” she said finally. “That’s good. Because you’re going to need to be strong. Stronger than you’ve ever been.”

“I’m stronger than you think,” I said.

“I hope so.” Anthea turned back to the stove. “Because tomorrow, everything changes. And I need to know you can handle it.”

Beatrice reached over and squeezed my hand. Her fingers were warm and rough with calluses.

“We’re all in this together,” she said. “That’s the important thing. We’re a family. We’re a unit.”

I looked at my sisters—the zealot and the artist, the believer and the dreamer. We were so different, and yet we were the same. We were Moriarty women. We were the living proof of our father’s philosophy.

And tomorrow, the world will see.

The drive to school was a ritual I’d performed a hundred times. Anthea’s Volvo was a capsule of controlled air, scented with rosemary and determination. Beatrice sat in the front passenger seat, sketching in her notebook. I sat in the back, watching the fog dissolve into the city.

San Francisco was emerging from its morning shroud. The buildings were still soft, their edges blurred by mist. The streets were empty, the sidewalks quiet. It was the city in its most honest state—naked, unadorned, waiting.

I’d never thought about it that way before. The city was naked, and it was beautiful. If a city could be naked, why couldn’t I?

SOTA rose out of the fog like a concrete fortress. Ruth Asawa, San Francisco School of the Arts. My new school. My new battleground.

I’d been attending for a month, and I still felt like an outsider. The students at SOTA were intense, focused, and brilliant. They were artists, musicians, and dancers. They were performers in the truest sense of the word. And I was just ... me.

Or I had been. Tomorrow, everything will change.

Anthea parked the car. She turned off the engine. The silence was sudden and complete.

“Remember,” she said, turning to look at me in the back seat. “Tomorrow, you’re not just a student. You’re Moriarty. You’re the daughter of Alistair Moriarty. You have a legacy to live up to.”

“I’m the daughter of a dead man,” I said. “That’s the only legacy I’ve ever known.”

Anthea’s eyes flickered. For a moment, I thought she might be angry. But then she smiled—a thin, tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Good,” she said. “You’re starting to sound like one of us.”

She got out of the car. Beatrice followed. I sat for a moment, watching them walk across the parking lot. They were both wearing clothes now—the costumes of the outside world. Anthea in her tailored blazer and slim trousers. Beatrice in her paint-stained jeans and vintage sweater.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I’d worn them this morning because I had to. Because the outside world wasn’t ready for me yet.

Tomorrow, it will be ready. Or it would have to be.

I got out of the car.

The school was a labyrinth of hallways and classrooms, of lockers and announcements and the constant hum of teenage energy. I walked through it like a ghost, watching the other students. They were so alive. So engaged. They laughed and shouted and argued about things that seemed both trivial and important.

They didn’t know what was coming. They didn’t know what I was.