Close to an hour later, James stepped out of the room, looking quite exhausted.

Nothing had worked to the effect that he was hoping for, in spite of him having doled out every trick in the book that he knew of just to coax some manner of response from Estella.

“How did it go?” Lucian inquired anxiously.

James shook his head. “Essie has completely shut herself in. She has refused to communicate with anyone and is resistant even to me. My guess is that she must have been triggered by ...