The darkness of the Nebrodi Mountains was not a void; it was a texture. For Seraphina, the silence of the villa at three in the morning felt like the pressurized atmosphere of a deep-sea dive—heavy, suffocating, and teeming with unseen predators. She lay in the center of the bed, her breathing shallow and rhythmic, a perfect imitation of sleep that would have fooled any sensor except the one lying beside her.
Alessandro’s presence was a furnace, a grounding heat that should have been her sanctuary. But the secret of the obsidian tile, now tucked into the hollow of her jewelry box, felt like a live wire stitched into her nervous system. Every time his arm shifted in his sleep, she felt the phantom itch of Julian’s voice: *It’s in the marrow.*
She waited for the digits of the bedside clock
