Kian killed the headlights before we reached the tree line, easing the car onto a patch of dead grass hidden from the road.
"From here we walk," he said, his voice low, all business now. "If she's watching that driveway, I don't want her counting more than one set of headlights."
We climbed out into the cold, the stronghold looming ahead through gaps in the trees, its stone walls half-swallowed by ivy and decades of neglect. No lights showed from any window. No sound reached us except wind moving through branches and, somewhere distant, the faint call of an owl settling in for the night.
"It doesn't look occupied," Marcus murmured.
"It's not supposed to," Dominic said. "That's the point."
Kian turned to face the three of us, his expression carved from something harder than the guilt h
