The carriage tore through the sleeping streets of the Merchant Quarter, a black, silent projectile of ducal fury. Caelan did not wait for it to come to a complete stop. He was out the door before the wheels had ceased their turning, his long coat swirling around him like a cloak of shadows.
He stood before the dark, silent facade of Wren & Co. The place where this madness had begun. It looked so ordinary, so fragile. A simple shop, a home, now the epicenter of a storm that threatened to consume them all.
He did not bother with the lock. He reached out a hand, and with a whispered word in a language that had not been spoken in Bellmere for a thousand years, the heavy oak door swung inward without a sound. The bell, meant to announce a customer's arrival, remained eerily silent.
He stepped inside, Lucien a grim shadow at his heels.
The workshop was a tomb. The air was cold and still, but the first thing that struck him, a blow more potent than any physical assault, was her scent.
