The air inside the car was thick with silence—the kind that doesn't come from the absence of words, but from everything still echoing beneath the skin.
Helena kept her gaze fixed on the forest slowly fading behind the window. Leofrik drove with white-knuckled hands gripping the wheel, jaw tight, as if afraid a single wrong word might shatter everything he'd been holding back for too long.
"That... was way too close," Helena murmured finally, breaking the stillness. She didn’t say it in reproach or fear, but with the awareness that something important had nearly been lost.
Leofrik nodded without looking at her.
"I know."
A moment of silence.
"Did you know it could be her in Mason's house?" Helena asked, turning her face slightly toward him.
Leofrik let out a low, humorless laugh.
"I
