December deepened.
The city was glazed in ice, the lamps along the avenues smudged to gold halos in the fog. The carriages rolled slower, and every street carried whispers — of politics, of scandal, of power rearranging itself behind closed doors.
Winter, in this city, had always belonged to the powerful.
And the powerful were stirring again.
--
Serena
The morning light in the Nest was thin, filtered through frost.
Serena sat at the table, staring into her untouched tea. She'd been up since before dawn, the air so cold that her breath misted above the porcelain.
The fire crackled weakly. She could hear Charlton moving upstairs — slow, deliberate, restless. He'd been that way for days now, pacing from room to room, leaving at odd hours, returning with his coat smelling of smoke and rain.
He didn't tell her what he did.
He didn't have to. She could feel it — the gathering of something larger than both of them.
