Vivian.
Morning did not arrive gently.
It gathered like pressure before thunder.
Even before we left London, I felt it — something waiting, something old, something that had been patient for years and had finally decided to open its eyes.
Sebastian stood beside me as the car door closed, his hand already wrapped around mine. He had not slept. I knew it without asking. His calm was not rest — it was readiness.
Lucas drove.
No unnecessary movement. No conversation. Only the quiet hum of security systems and the long road unfolding ahead.
No one said it aloud, but we all understood:
This was not a visit.
This was an arrival into something that had already claimed space in my life long before I knew its name.
