The Croft mansion, usually alive with elegance and quiet sophistication, had become a house of sorrow. The once-bright chandeliers now seemed dimmer, the halls heavier with a silence that suffocated anyone who dared to walk through them.

Dandelion Croft stood by the large living room window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She had always been the composed one, the eldest who held the family together in times of distress. But now, her expression betrayed her fragility, her jaw trembling as she gazed out at the gray sky.

Behind her, their mother sat in a high-backed chair, her face buried in her hands. The strong, poised matriarch of the...