{Volume two starts.}
Julian walked through the long, high-arched hallway of the Duke's manor, his boots clicking softly against the dark stone floor.
Outside the narrow windows, the sky was a heavy, perpetual grey, and the wind howled against the glass like a restless spirit. It was a sound that used to terrify him, but now, it felt like a lullaby.
How quickly time had slipped through his fingers.
It had been months since they had fled the Capital, leaving behind the mourning banners and the Emperor's suffocating shadow.
Back when he was still just a simple tutor who had come to teach the Young Lord, the staff of this manor—especially the head butler and Lucius's stern nanny—had looked at Julian as nothing more than a temporary eyesore, a frail scholar who had somehow stumbled into the Duke's favor and was 'changing things'.
Everything had been within their grasp all along, until he showed up and began to meddle. The nanny's negative 2 was especially hard to ignore.
