Winter loosened its grip slowly, reluctantly, as though it wanted to keep its icy fingers on the Hawthorne estate forever. January bled into February, and February into March. The snowbanks that had once piled high around the academy’s fields shrank into grey slush, the ground beneath them soft and muddy. Even the fountains in the courtyard, once frozen into glittering statues of ice, had begun to stir, their streams breaking through like whispers of spring.
But peace never came—not really.
Scarlett had returned to the Wellington Military Academy after the chaos of Christmas, carrying with her the weight of everything that had happened. The attack on the road. Ethan’s wound. James Mercer’s hand on her wrist, his eyes filled with possession. Her father’s warning that war was coming.
The
