Chapter 37: House of Masks
The sheets were colder than he remembered.
Not cold from weather—cold from silence, from familiarity without warmth.
Noel's eyes blinked open slowly, adjusting to the dim morning light that filtered through the heavy curtains of his childhood room.
The same four-poster bed.
The same high ceilings and carved wooden furniture.
The same sterile scent of incense and old money.
He sat up with a slow breath, muscles stiff from the ride. A faint ache lingered in his back, the kind that came not from combat—but from trying too hard to look composed for too long.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and let his feet touch the polished stone floor.
'Three months gone, and it's like I never left.'
He padded barefoot to the bathroom—marble tiles and a basin that gleamed with polished silver. The water ran warm, a rare comfort in this house, and he stood under it longer than he meant to.
Steam filled the room.