(Rosaline POV)
The knock came at an unusual hour.
Not early enough to be urgent, not late enough to be informal—precisely timed to interrupt the quiet lull of the afternoon, when the De Falon estate was at its most composed.
I was seated by the window in the solar, a ledger open before me that I had not truly been reading for the past quarter hour. Sunlight filtered through pale curtains, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. It should have been peaceful.
Yet the moment the knock sounded, my fingers stilled.
Not because it was loud.
But because something inside me tightened—an instinctive pull, subtle but unmistakable, like a shadow shifting just out of sight.
Priscilla looked up from where she was sorting correspondence at the side table.
"That's odd," she murmured. "We weren't expecting anyone."
Before either of us could speak again, the door opened.
