The morning after was quieter than it should have been.
Not because the storm had passed—but because no one trusted the calm.
Orla woke alone, the sheets still warm from where Stanley had lain. Her body ached in all the right places, but her chest carried the same old weight—like something inside her was pulling her deeper, demanding to be known.
When she came downstairs, Ciel was already by the window, coffee in hand, dressed in black.
“Who died?” Orla asked.
Ciel didn’t answer immediately.
Then: “Maybe we all did.”
In the study, Elias was pacing. A stack of unopened letters sat on the floor by the desk—letters Clara had written and dated years before her death. One bore Ciel’s name.
He’d seen it the night before, when the vault’s first compartment cracked open.
He hadn’t told he
