A Visit

Hayley

I did my best to get in touch with the Ironclaws, but all my efforts were in vain. They wouldn't respond to the letters I had sent them, and whenever I sent my guards over to try and get through to them, they would return with wounds and nothing more than threats from John and Jerome's wife. I planned to pay them a visit myself, but Damian strongly forbade it, and for good reasons too. John was far too stricken with grief to see reasons at the moment, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't try to harm me if I tried to sympathize or explain things to him.

Damian was definitely right, but even then, it felt wrong to me. Even though we might not be related by blood, the Ironclaws were the only people I could refer to as family. They had helped me in times when I had no one else to run to, and that alone was enough to make me understand that they're good people. All of this was just a result of anger and grief, which I believed would pass away soon.