Far from the glittering towers, private estates and beautifully maintained roads of Hell's Paradise Island, one of the Maxtons' properties rested beneath the night with such studied insignificance that even curious eyes would have found little reason to linger upon it.
The land was little more than a broad wooded hill rising from acres of neglected green, its slopes crowded with old stone, thorny shrubs and trees whose roots had spent decades crawling between weathered boulders. Moss covered much of the exposed rock in thick dark-green blankets, wild grass grew waist-high wherever the trees opened, and several narrow streams wandered down from the summit before vanishing beneath beds of black stone.
From above, it was simply another forgotten fold of Paradise's wilderness.
The truth slept several hundred meters beneath it.
