I was pacing along the stone path that wound through the estate gardens, trying to clear my mind. The breeze was soft, and the late afternoon sun painted the hedges in warm gold—but none of it touched me. I didn't feel any of it. My thoughts were elsewhere.
On him.
Luca von Valentine. My second brother.
The second son of House Valentine. The softest among us. Always distant, always murmuring about visions, hearing things no one else did, living in a world that none of us could truly reach. He was timid, fragile in ways neither I nor Vincent—our older brother—could understand. That boy always had his head in the clouds, dreaming strange dreams. I was always worried for him.
When he said he wanted to go to Arcadia Academy… I was against it. I told him so outright. But our parents… they believed it would be good for him. "Let him see the world," they said. "Let him make friends. If he can be happy, we'll be happy too."
But why didn't they understand?
