Eloise’ POV
The path stretched before me, shrouded in memories I had tried so hard to bury. My feet felt heavier with every step, as if the ghosts of my past were clinging to my ankles, urging me to turn back. But I couldn’t. Not now. Not when everything I had left was at stake.
The mansion loomed ahead, just as I remembered it—cold, imposing, a prison masquerading as a home. My chest tightened as I approached the gates. My hand trembled as I raised it to knock, the sound echoing like a judge’s gavel. A part of me hoped no one would answer.
But the gate creaked open, just as quickly as it always had. It seemed the mansion had been waiting for me, as though it knew I’d come crawling back one day.
The corridors felt just as I’d left them—silent and eerily pristine, like time had frozen i
