The carriage moved slowly through the snow.
The streets of Windsor had begun to fade into blue evening — the kind that blurred lamplight into halos and made every window glow like memory.
Serena sat inside, her hands clasped tight in her lap, her breath fogging the glass.
The echoes of her final conversation with Christopher still clung to her — his voice, his calm, the hollow ache of his absence.
But beneath that ache was something else.
Relief.
She had not realized until now how much of her life had been spent half-buried under other people's shadows — Charlton's pride, Geoffrey's guilt, Christopher's control.
And now, for the first time, there was nothing left but her.
The silence she carried was her own.
The carriage turned down a quieter street — one she knew by heart.
A place where she had both loved and wept.
The Nest.
The lamps were already lit in the windows. A faint warmth glowed behind the curtains.
Her heart thudded once, twice.
She was home.
--
The Door
