Anastasia’s POV:
Edmund Salvatore’s study had not been touched in twenty years.
Victoria told us this as Diane wheeled her down the hallway toward a door at the back of the house, and I understood as we walked that this wasn’t simply a room she had left alone out of grief. It was a room she had sealed, the way you sealed something you were afraid to look at directly, and the dust on the door handle told its own story before she even turned it.
“I come in twice a year,” she said. “To clean. I don’t move anything. I’ve not moved anything in twenty years.”
The room smelled like old paper and cedar and the particular staleness of air that had not been properly circulated in a long time. Lucas stood in the doorway for a moment before he stepped inside, and I watched him take in the space th
