*FLASHBACK*
The morning was damp with dew and silence, the kind that clung to the skin and crawled into the joints. Dawn had only begun its slow rise over the Welhaven estate, casting milky gold through the east-facing windows. The grand house was still in slumber, though the servants had begun to stir in the lower halls. Cook was already clattering about in the kitchen. The laundry girls whispered over folded linens.
And Ken moved like a shadow.
His boots were in his hand, his shirt misbuttoned in his haste. He crept down the hallway on the third floor, heart pounding, each creak in the floorboards like the snapping of a whip. Behind him, Maeve's door was shut, and locked, and would remain so until she awoke—later, long after he'd vanished. That was their pattern. Their ritual. Their sin.
He descended the servant's stairwell quickly, boots thudding softly against the worn wooden steps. Every corner could be a witness. Every face a threat.
