Alina's POV

The gates loomed, black iron filigree against a sky bruised with the last vestiges of twilight. Calloway Estate. The name itself felt like a whisper of old money, old grief, old secrets. I clutched the worn strap of my bag, the chill of the evening seeping through my thin coat, but it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver. It was the sheer, suffocating weight of the place, even before I’d stepped inside. A refuge, they’d called it. A gilded cage, perhaps.