AMARANTA POV
The room that used to be mine looked like it belonged to... no one, really. Just someone who had passed through briefly, without leaving a single trace of themselves behind.
I stood in the middle of it for a long moment with Garrett just behind me, staring at the pale, naked walls. They had once been covered with crooked sketches and dried herbs, hanging from nails I wasn’t technically allowed to hammer into the wood. I looked at the old window facing the pine trees, where I used to sit for hours whispering to the spirits of the lake—back when magic still felt gentle and curious, rather than something dangerous men wanted to control. Even my closet had changed; where I once hid posters of Justin Bieber and Taylor Lautner, there were now only old blankets and summer pillows.
