I opened the envelope alone.
I was in the bathroom on the second floor of the house, door locked, sitting on the cold edge of the tub with the cream card in my hands and my heart doing something unreasonable, and I read it twice because the first time the words arranged themselves into a shape I didn't want to accept.
Seraphina,
Saturday is not a wedding. Saturday is the day you meet the man your father chose for you before you were born. His name is Cian Voss. He is Dorian's cousin. He has known about you since Edinburgh. He has been in every city you've lived in since you were nineteen, not because Andrei sent him, but because he chose to be there.
He is the man in the background of your mother's photograph.
He is the man who left the book on your nightstand.
He was in the bookshop
