Lena's POV
It was raining.
Not the dramatic kind that announces itself — just a quiet, persistent grey drizzle that had settled over the estate since morning, turning the gardens soft and blurring the stone wall at the perimeter until it almost disappeared into the sky.
I had been in the library most of the day. Not reading — thinking, mostly, with a book open in my lap as cover. Thinking about Marcus Hale, whose name I'd heard only once, muttered by one of the guards in the corridor two nights ago. Thinking about Damian's face when he'd come out of his office that morning — tighter than usual, something behind his eyes that hadn't been there before.
Thinking about yet.
Mara found me there just after four, carrying two cups of tea the way she sometimes did — without asking, without ce
