Chapter 22 The Thorn Remnant

The snow arrived two weeks early.

It came not with wind or warning, but with the kind of hush that buried whole stories. The trees bowed low beneath it. The orchard lost its shape. Even Thornwick Hall itself vast, brooding, monumental appeared softened beneath a coat of white, like a beast lulled into stillness.

Calla stood in the east wing, watchi