The heavy door shut behind him with a quiet click.
For a moment, Noel just stood there in the corridor — the faint orange glow of wall sconces stretching his shadow across the marble floor. The silence of the Thorne mansion felt heavier than before, pressing down on him like an old memory refusing to fade.
His steps echoed softly as he started walking. The conversation with Albrecht replayed in fragments — words about his mother, her smile, her warmth, her death. It was strange. He had never known her, yet now, after hearing his father speak, he could almost picture her. The way she laughed. The way she might have held him.
And somehow… it hurt.
'So that's the kind of person she was,' he thought, his gaze fixed ahead. 'The kind of person this world took away from him.'
