Poppy's POV

　　The air is thick with the scent of impending rain, and every nerve in my body screams that the world as I know it teeters on the verge of collapse. Heart pounding like a frenzied drum, I slip through the shadowed corridors, my senses heightened to the whispers dancing on the edges of silence.

　　"James," my voice is a hushed urgency, a thread of desperation woven through it, as I find him hidden away in the dimly lit alcove, his figure shrouded in ...