The library of the Blackwood Estate was a cathedral of ancient parchment and dark mahogany, a place where the air usually smelled of cedar and the quiet dignity of history. But tonight, the atmosphere was suffocating.
The air felt thin, as if the thousands of leather-bound volumes lining the towering shelves were exhaling the crushing weight of centuries of secrets, all of them pressing down on the two souls standing in the center of the room.
Cassian had brought Elena there under the flimsy, transparent pretext of "consulting on the pack’s northern borders." It was a lie they both recognized, a social lubricant for a conversation that refused to flow.
The sprawling maps lay forgotten on the massive oak table between them, their edges curling like scorched skin under the low light of
