Chapter 298 - CH 298 — The Queen Alone

The night did not comfort her as nights once might have done, for it stretched vast and indifferent beyond the glass, its quiet too complete, too hollow, and Ella stood alone within that stillness with her arms folded loosely across herself, her fingers pressing faintly into her sleeves as though holding something together that threatened to come undone, while her gaze lingered upon the distant lights of the city that moved without pause and without care, and though her posture remained composed, there was a slight heaviness in the way her shoulders rested, as if the weight she carried had settled deeper than she had intended.