The blinds were drawn tight, the storm outside hammering against the tall windows of Professor Julian Blackwood’s office. Rain sluiced down the glass in frantic rivulets, the kind of downpour that made the world outside blur into a gray smear of shadow and motion. Lightning flashed, its afterglow trembling faintly across the edges of the heavy curtains. Inside, though, there was warmth—a thick, cloying kind of warmth that didn’t come from the radiator humming in the corner. It came from the silence. From the waiting. From restraint pulled taut as a bowstring.
Julian sat behind his desk, his jaw tight, his knuckles grazing the polished mahogany as if grounding himself. His office had always been a sanctuary—books stacked in precarious towers, shelves lined with sketchpads, canvases leaned
