Eleanor:
The house feels colder than it did last night, though the temperature hasn’t changed. I walk across the marble floors of the Windsor estate from the kitchen back to the staircase, the stone cold against my bare feet, reminding me I still exist. My father hasn’t spoken to me since dinner. Not a word. Not a glance.Not even when he passed me with his morning coffee while I ate breakfast. I try to tell myself it’s nothing—Griffin’s moods fluctuate like the stock market—but the silence presses against me, sharp and unrelenting.
I brush past the library, ignoring the scent of old leather and polished oak, and enter my room. The floor-to-ceiling windows let in the first hint of sunlight, but the bright city below feels distant, irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the subtle, gna
