The estate was nothing but bones by dawn. Charred beams jutted up from the dirt like ribs of some dead beast, crooked, ugly. Smoke still rising, curling into nothing.
I stood there in the courtyard. The parchment felt heavy, too heavy for just one word. Soon. That’s all. Just that, and yet my hand shook like it weighed a stone.
Wren was stepping careful over the wreckage, skirts dragging soot. Her cheek smeared dark. She still somehow looked sharp enough to cut.
“They didn’t just burn walls,” she said. They burned certainty. Everyone here will whisper—who’s next, when?”
I swallowed. She was right. Fear is fire. Once it catches, it runs faster than flame ever could.
Behind us, gideon was already barking orders, his voice steady but his shoulders stiff like iron rods. He was clenching h
