Lilian’s POV
The forest didn’t just end; it seemed to bow in reverence, peeling back to reveal a sprawling estate that made the ultra-modern DeLuca Tower look like a sterile toy.
What the parting trees revealed wasn’t a glass fortress, but a manor born of stone and shadow, rising from the earth like a natural formation that had stood for centuries. It was Gothic and massive, constructed from charcoal-grey stone walls covered in climbing ivy that had turned a deep, blood-red as if it were still autumn. Large turrets pierced the sky, and statues that looked uncomfortably like gargoyles perched on the eaves, watching the driveway with blind, stony eyes.
“This,” Alexander said, his voice dropping an octave as the car slowed, “is Blackwood.”
I stared at it through the window, my breath fogg
