They reached the Ashgrove manor two days later, the artifact carefully secured throughout the journey, and found Damaris already waiting in Kane's own study — the same room where this entire story had begun months earlier, where Wren had first brought a basin of water to a man everyone told her to fear.
"I wondered how long it would take you to find your way here," Damaris said, rising from behind Kane's desk with none of the guilty uncertainty he'd shown during his previous confession about Kane's mother's death. Instead, something colder and more calculating had settled over his features.
"You know why we're here," Kane said, not bothering to disguise the fury still simmering beneath his controlled exterior.
"I assume it concerns the key," Damaris said, confirming their worst suspicio
