The next day, Evan went back home, and with his departure, the house sank into a heavy quiet. It was the kind of silence that clung to the walls, pressing against every corner, as though everyone inside was trying to convince themselves that nothing had happened the day before. But Winona could not pretend. She knew Ares’s reappearance was not some passing storm. It was the first ripple of a battle that would drag her back into the life she had fought so hard to escape. He had already used ...