Chapter : The Face in the Mirror

I left the estate before sunrise.

No goodbye. No explanation.

Lucien would’ve stopped me, and I couldn’t afford his caution—not when my sister was alive, lost, and somewhere in the hands of people who’d turned her into a shadow. A weapon.

The world didn’t feel real as I drove through the waking city. Streetlights blurred into soft halos, and the sky bled pale blue behind the skyline. I didn’t know where I was going. Only who I needed to find.

Camilla.

The name used to feel like a scar. Now, it pulsed like a wound that never stopped bleeding.

I parked near an...