SERAPHINA’S POV
The house was too quiet after Ethan left.
It was not the gentle hush of morning, but a strange, ringing silence that pressed against my ears.
I lingered in the kitchen long after the door clicked shut, my gaze fixed on the empty chair where he had been.
Daniel’s footsteps echoed upstairs, the sound of running water drifting down, blissfully unaware of the storm that had just been set loose inside me.
My eyes drifted to the table where the diary lay.
Margaret Lockwood’s diary.
It seemed to carry more weight than a diary should, its thick leather cover and smoothed corners bearing the fingerprints of years.
When I lifted it, the spine creaked softly, as if the book itself braced for what was to come.
I carried the diary to the living room and sat, letting it rest on my knees, unopened.
I tried to prepare myself.
For anger. For manipulation. For cold justification written in careful, self-righteous prose.
