"Have you eaten yet?"
Byron Thorne asked with a gentle smile. He looked a bit like Shane Thorne—scholarly and rather refined. Felix Thorne resembled his mother, Raina, but his two younger brothers both took after Byron Thorne, with handsome, cultured features.
"No."
Tang Xiaonan shook her head. Her second uncle, Frederick Thorne, and his wife, Lana Steiner, weren't home. They lived in town.
Because Lana Steiner couldn't have children, Byron Thorne and Raina were very displeased with their second daughter-in-law—even more so than they were with Phoebe Huxley.
They had often told Frederick Thorne to divorce her and remarry, but he refused. He and Lana Steiner had a strong relationship. Fearing the conflict at home would worsen, Frederick had simply bought a house in town. The couple rarely returned to Millstone Peak, so their house in the old village was almost always empty.
