Damian's POV
They left at midday.
No pack escort. No formal convoy. Just the four of them in two vehicles moving north on roads that got quieter the further they went from Blackwood territory.
Damian drove the first car. Eve in the passenger seat. Damon and Silas behind them.
Nobody talked much.
That was fine.
There was nothing left to say that hadn't already been said. They'd spent a week on Aldenmere, Silas pulling records, Damon mapping exits, Damian cross referencing everything Vessa's letter had claimed against forty years of Conclave documentation. Every detail had checked out. Every detail that could be checked.
The ones that couldn't were the reason they were driving north instead of writing back.
Aldenmere was small.
The kind of village that existed in the gaps between larger places....one main road, a handful of shops, houses set back behind old stone walls. The kind of place that had been there for three hundred years and wasn't interested in being noticed.
