Chapter 35: A Night of Revelations

The candlelight flicked against my bedroom walls, but i felt no warmth from its glow. Cavendish Manor was silent at this hour, its corridors lined with portraits of ancestors who had lived and died by the rigid rules of society. Rules I was beginning to despise.

I turned the small note over in my hands, tracing the inked words with my fingers.

Midnight. Whitechapel. The old chapel ruins.

The message had arrived that morning, slipped into my gloved palm by a street boy with eyes too old for his young face. I had known it was from Julian the moment I saw the careful scrawl, the sharp, decisive strokes of his handwriting.

And now, as the clock neared midnight, my pulse thrummed with anticipation—and something more dangerous.

I should not go.