Robert's coat flared once in the breeze and was gone, the garden gate sighing shut behind him.
Silence gathered like dew.
Annabelle Voidhowl stood barefoot on the marble, her satin shoes abandoned beneath a bench of moon‑white stone.
Lanterns hovered along the pergola—mercurial orbs of witch‑glass that bobbed whenever she exhaled, attuned to the thin pulse of her magic. She lifted a hand; with a lazy twist of her fingers one lamp drifted closer, its warm core brightening so the golden light kissed her cheek.
A small thing. A girl thing. Practice, control, comfort.
The estate's rear garden sprawled below in terraced steps: cypress sentinels, night‑lilies releasing ghost‑blue pollen, a round mirror‑pond cradling the reflection of a fractured sunset now fading into starlight. Jasmine clung to every railing, and whenever a blossom dropped, she slowed its fall—just enough to watch it hover before letting gravity reclaim it.
