Ava’s POV
The house felt tighter that evening.
I noticed it first in the way the staff moved—quieter than usual, more precise, as if someone had turned the volume down on the entire estate. When I passed Raymond in the upstairs hallway he gave me a short nod but did not slow his pace. Two security men I had never seen before stood near the main staircase, speaking in low voices before separating and disappearing toward different wings of the house. Something was shifting beyond the walls, and the pressure of it had begun to seep inside.
I spent most of the afternoon in the library because it was the one place that still felt still. The heavy chairs, the smell of old paper and leather, the way the light fell across the long table—all of it gave me somewhere to sit with my thoughts withou
