The rain never stopped falling all night long. It beat upon the windows of the great house in constant streams, and the sound resonated down the halls like a tremendous, warning sound. Isla stepped silently through the halls, and her feet took her where she should not have been going.
The office door was open. The guards standing in front of it had moved to respond to noise outside, and she was curious, which felt like a burning in her chest. She slipped in and pushed the side of the door as she closed it behind herself.
The desk smelled of tobacco and old leather. Dante's life was one of steel and ink, maps on the wall, piles of folders, and a locked cabinet jammed to the rear. Isla looked around the desk, with papers scattered randomly, as if someone had just stopped reading them in mid-sentence.
Her hands shook, but she opened the top folder.
