{Third Person}
Inside the study, silence settled once more.
Alexander remained seated, the unopened letter still resting loosely between his fingers. But his thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.
'They are like family to me.'
Her words replayed quietly in his mind.
Alexander's gaze lowered slightly as he repeated that word, 'family', under his breath.
The irony of that statement did not escape him because he already knew Amara was not truly a Caldwell.
At first, he had only suspected something was wrong. But after the incident that night—the night she became drunk and nearly unconscious after drinking the sobering soup, his suspicions had deepened.
He still remembered clearly how strangely her body had reacted when Mrs. Woods used cold water to clean her.
The blue veins that surfaced faintly beneath her skin.
The unnatural reaction to temperature.
And the way everything disappeared again was only after warm water was used.
