Seraphina's POV
I stepped into my room and closed the door behind me quietly.
For a long minute, I didn't move. I just stood there, anchored to the floorboards, breathing in the stale, familiar scent of lavender and old secrets.
But the silence in the room was wrong. It wasn't the peaceful quiet of a space; it was a heavy, disturbed air, as if someone had entered my space and left pieces of themselves behind.
I knew I had walked into the lion's den the moment I pulled into the driveway, but I hadn't come here to trade barbs with the shadows. I had come for the only pieces of my mother that hadn't been swallowed by my father's greed.
My eyes swept the room, and the hair on my arms stood up.
And immediately, I noticed it.
Something was wrong.
The room looked turned upside down.
Not messy enough for someone else to notice immediately, but I noticed. Drawers slightly open. A chair near the window was pushed out of place. My vanity mirror shifted slightly. Someone had been here.
