"Okay, if you say so, but just so you know, I have to go later." Amy said bluntly before going out.
"So, wait," Risa said as they followed Amy down the building steps. "You're just going to the estate?"
Amy nodded. "The transfer was submitted this morning. Damon said the paperwork should be finalized by end of day. I just want to make sure there are no issues when I arrive."
Lumi raised an eyebrow. "And you were going to go alone?"
"It's just a routine check—"
"We're coming," both said at once.
Amy blinked. "It's not—"
"Nope." Lumi looped an arm around hers. "We helped you pick out shoes for your first date. We absolutely get to snoop around your secret inherited mansion."
"It's not a mansion," Amy muttered.
Risa smirked. "We'll be the judge of that."
The Elarion Estate stood quiet under the mellow gold of the late afternoon sun. Amy had driven them through a private road surrounded by high, dense hedges, which eventually opened into the familiar front court she remembered from Friday night. Without the music, lights, and people, the estate felt hauntingly serene.
The gate recognized her car. It opened automatically.
Lumi stared. "Okay. That's not normal. Even for rich people."
Amy tried not to feel strange about it. "Damon said the AI systems were linked to my ID this morning."
Inside, the estate looked untouched. The stone paths were still clean, the garden perfectly manicured, the main hall locked but humming faintly with climate control. Amy led them around slowly — from the tree-lined path that bordered the back garden to the smaller glass conservatory that glimmered quietly even without sunlight.
"It's so…" Risa trailed off. "Private."
Lumi was walking ahead, hands pressed to the tall windows. "It feels… like it's waiting."
Amy felt it too. Something in the stillness. In the way the house didn't resist her presence — it almost welcomed it. Like it remembered her. Or remembered someone she came from.
She unlocked the main entrance.
They didn't go far — just enough to see a few rooms: a vaulted foyer, a side library, a quiet tea parlor with folded furniture covers. Her friends whispered to each other, awe lining their voices. Amy moved through it all with an odd mixture of distance and familiarity, as if she were watching someone else's memory.
By early evening, they were back outside, the last of the sunlight slipping beyond the hedges.
"Well," Lumi said as she stretched, "if you ever feel like throwing another party, this place wouldn't complain."
Amy smiled faintly. "I'll keep it in mind."
They got back into her car, the silence between them warm and thoughtful.
She dropped them off one by one, and by the time she pulled up to her own apartment, the stars were already starting to prick the sky.
Monday faded into night — quietly, steadily — as if making space for something else to begin.
…
Tuesday Morning
She woke before dawn, mind already in motion.
The city was already stirring when Ametrine left her apartment.
She took the Lilac Ghost this time. Then she headed east — past the city edge, past the shimmering towers — into the sleepy rural stretches that clung to the outer limits like forgotten threads.
If she was going to start preparing in earnest, she needed space — literal, not metaphorical. The Lilac Ghost, elegant as it was, didn't have the capacity for what she had in mind. Which meant one thing.
She turned off the main road just past the last toll gate and followed the winding path veiled by slightly overgrown blue-leaf hedges. The air smelled cleaner out here — filtered by quiet wind and fruit-bearing trees programmed to thrive on neglect.
The mansion revealed itself slowly in the early light. Smooth white composite stone and alloy-carbon panels reflected nothing, and the soft solar skin along the roof hummed faintly to life as the sun climbed higher.
It hadn't changed.