After Lucian left, Seraphina remained seated for a long while.
The couch she was sitting on had been slightly pushed toward the shattered window, the table tilted in front of it like a makeshift barricade—carefully arranged by Lucian so that nothing could easily enter through the broken frame.
But even with the house completely closed, even in that fragile sense of "safety", she didn't feel safe at all.
Her fingers clenched tightly against the fabric of her nightgown, the cloth wrinkling under her grip.
And within every few minutes, her gaze kept drifting toward the clock on the wall.
In the absolute silence of the house, every tick of a second sounded unbearably loud.
Time moved forward.
First minutes passed, then hours.
And yet, during all that time, she never moved from her spot.
Not even an inch.
But her body betrayed her calm exterior in small, subtle ways.
Unknowingly, her nails pressed against her teeth as she began biting them under the growing unease.
