Outside, the morning air greeted Eliana like a cold slap—brisk, sharp, and brimming with the unforgiving honesty that darkness often concealed. She wrapped her thin shawl tighter around herself as she stepped through the tall iron gates of the Vexley estate. The guards nodded at her, but even their polite greetings felt distant, muffled, as if she were walking through a dream she wasn't ready to wake from.
She raised a hand at the sight of an approaching cab. It rolled to a slow stop, the engine humming beneath the quiet of dawn. The driver—a middle-aged man with grizzled stubble and kind, sun-creased eyes—adjusted the mirror to look at her.
"Early start, Madam?" he asked, voice warm and gentle, like someone who had seen countless stories climb into the back seat of his cab.
"Yes," she answered, her voice soft and tired, barely clinging to composure. "To the university, please."
