Though her days remained bleak, a faint shift had stirred in Eva's life after her visit to the castle. It wasn't that the rumors had ceased whispering behind her back, nor that her family's cold indifference had thawed—no, they continued as ever, treating her presence like something half-forgotten, a ghost wandering through their home.
Once, such cruelty had hollowed her out, gnawing at her heart in slow, invisible bites until she could hardly tell where the pain ended and she began. But now... now there was something small and steady that kept her from crumbling entirely. A distraction. A fragile spark that glimmered against the dull ache of her days.
That spark was reading—and writing.
