Serena's POV

I ate in the kitchen alone. The silence of the house enveloped me in dust—stacked, old, and motionless. The kind of silence that reminded you of how loudly absence could be. Dominic had not returned in two days. No calls. No messages. His number would not ring.

Maybe he needed space to sort out everything going on. I stared at the torn page in front of me—a fragment I’d found near the old vent shaft in the hallway closet. Watermarked. It had Discolored ink and was ...