The book's last sentence burned into the room like cold iron: "When the blood moon rises, the debt will be claimed. The daughter will pay the coin."
Alessia's breath left her in ragged pulls.
The kitchen's pale light seemed to thin around them, as if the walls themselves were listening.
Outside, the rain had stopped, the estate exhaled a damp, petrichor hush.
For a charged instant, the world narrowed to the two of them and the leather-bound truth between them.
She had always known there were layers to Luca's steel wrapped in velvet, threat braided with care but she had never seen him unarmoured by certainty.
Her confession, her questions, the raw tremor in her hands as she read the inked verdict of her fate, all landed and met with something new in his eyes-fear, jagged and unexpected.
