Three days had passed since the assassin's attack. The study of Blackthorn Manor appeared restored on the surface. The shattered vase had been disposed of, the claw marks that had scarred the corridor's stone tiles had been polished away by the servants, and the smell of blood had vanished. Yet even with the ledger open before her, the numbers refused to enter Blackthorn Evangeline's mind. She set down her quill and sank deep into the back of her chair. Her notebook lay at the edge of the desk. Without opening its leather cover, the final line she had written floated behind her eyes. —Why did Thornbind change? The question was written. The answer was not. In her previous life, Thornbind had been a power that directly ensnared limbs. In this life, it ran across the ground. Stone, mortar joints, roots—as if the thorns themselves breathed within the earth itself. She could not understand what that difference meant without consulting the ancient records of the Soaring Ridge region—the