Corvine stood there staring at Seraphine as if he could not quite believe the woman standing in front of him was the same one who had walked out of the house a little over a day ago, because even though the difference in her appearance might have seemed small to anyone else who had not spent as much time watching her as he had, there was something about her presence that felt unfamiliar, almost as if some invisible layer of tension had melted away and left behind a calmer, softer version of her that made him feel strangely unsettled.
More than twenty four hours had passed since she left, and during that entire stretch of time he had barely slept, his mind running through one unpleasant possibility after another while he waited for her return, and now that she was finally standing in front of him, safe and unharmed, he found himself struggling with the strange feeling that he was talking to someone who looked like Seraphine yet somehow carried a different energy altogether.
