Chapter Fifteen
The morning light feels wrong.
It creeps through the heavy curtains in thin golden stripes, too soft for a house like this. The walls seem built for storms, for shadows, not daylight. But the sun doesn’t care. It pries through the cracks anyway, spilling over the rugs, the carved furniture, the canopy posts that loom like watchful sentries.
I lie there for a long moment, listening to the silence. No city traffic, no neighbors through the walls, no distant sirens. Just the faint hum of wards in the air, a steady static under the skin, reminding me this place is sealed shut.
Bella stirs in the other bed. She yawns, stretches like a cat, and pads across the room, slipping into bed beside me. She's always been like this with me, even when Mom and Dad were around. We had a
