LILY
The house never fully relaxed after the lockdown.
Everything worked, of course—the lights, the security systems, the quiet efficiency of staff moving through their routines—but there was a tautness beneath it all, like a muscle that hadn’t unclenched. Or maybe that was just me.
I felt it in small ways. The way my shoulders stayed lifted even when I was alone. The way I flinched at sudden sounds. The way I kept thinking about the safe room, about walls that felt closer than they should have.
I told myself it was nothing. Just residual nerves.
That lie didn’t last long.
Late afternoon bled into evening, and I was folding linens in the service corridor when Margaret found me.
“Mr. Grant asked for you,” she said, her expression neutral but curious. “In his study.”
My fingers tight
