Chapter 161: The Morning That Feels Different

Morning arrived the way it always did in Celestine Heights. Quiet. Pale light filtered through sheer curtains. The air held a coolness that never quite belonged to the season, preserved by stone walls and careful design.

Lillian opened her eyes before her alarm.

For a moment she did not move. She simply lay there and listened, as if the house might tell her what she was allowed to feel.

There was no sound of rain. No distant traffic. No staff footsteps in the corridor. Only the steady hush of wealth doing what it did best, insulating itself from the world.

And yet something had shifted.

It was not a new warmth, not exactly. Not the kind that came from comfort. It was more like a thread inside her chest had tightened into place. As if her