(Elara's POV)The house did not sleep. I did not sleep. I lay in the predawn grey, my hearing stretched thin as a wire, cataloguing the sounds of the settling estate. The chime of the clock was not marking time, but measuring a lag. When the first faint clatter came from the kitchen, far below, it felt less like the start of a new day and more like the opening move in a game whose rules I was only beginning to decipher.The morning was a study in performed normalcy, etched in acid. I met Charles in the hallway outside our rooms. No words were needed. His hand, cool and steady, brushed mine. A point of contact, a transfer of resolve. At breakfast in the sunlit morning room, the air was thick with unspoken words. Peter entered, a silent phantom in his dark suit, bearing a silver tray of kedgeree and toast. His movements were, as ever, a model of unobtrusive efficiency. But I saw it now. The economy that was not humility but control, the qui
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