Nikolaus cursed under his breath at the telling action of his retreat from touch.
He did not apologize, could not in the emotion of the moment. To have to come here, to these familiar rooms, to see firsthand the destruction of what he had held dear, was more than he could bear. It almost overwhelmed his intentions, his cool, calm logic that would see them free.
This room had lived in his imagination for all these years, a retreat from the horrors, a place of love and contentment, with Tanya magically waiting there, timeless and ageless, alive.
To see it like this. Putrid and tainted, rent something in his heart that had managed to remain whole up until this point.
He had come here, knowing perhaps in some corner of his mind that it could not possibly be the same, but he had imagined i
