Damien's POV
The estate was quiet when we got back.
Not the held-breath quiet of the last ten days, the kind that meant something was about to happen. Just quiet. Morning light on the marble floors and nobody running anywhere and the particular stillness of a building that had temporarily run out of emergencies.
I stood in the entrance hall and let it settle around me.
Sophia came in behind me and stopped beside me and looked at the same nothing I was looking at.
"It's strange," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Good strange," she said.
"Yes," I said.
We stood there for a moment doing nothing, which was something I had forgotten was an option.
Then she said "bed," and I said "yes," and we went upstairs.
She stopped at her door. I stopped at mine. We looked at each other across the corri
