Chapter 4

The darkness of my room had become a strange comfort. After Isabella's cruel display with my grandmother's locket, I'd retreated here, gathering the broken pieces of silver in my palm until they cut into my skin. The physical pain was almost a relief—something tangible amid the emotional torment that had become my existence.

I sat on the floor, back pressed against the wall, listening to the hollow silence of a house that should have felt like home. The basement room they'd relegated me to was directly beneath Marcus's study—a fact they'd probably forgotten when banishing me here.

Voices drifted down…