#Chapter 37: The Last Door

(Violet’s POV) The gates opened with the same seamless precision I remembered—quiet, unhurried, and far too graceful for a house built on silence and subjugation. They welcomed me now as they had for years, but without purpose, without anyone left to perform for. The guards were gone. The servants, dismissed. No one stood at the threshold to smooth my collar or ask if I’d be dining alone. For the first time, I understood that I wasn’t returning. I was ending something. The estate loomed in perfect symmetry, its windows polished, its gardens still shaped into obedient lines. But beneath the sheen, there was something hollow. An absence not caused by neglect, but by exposure. The kind that follows a fall from grace so complete, even the walls seem unsure of their role. I stepped into the entrance hall without hesitation. No one had touched a thing. The floors shone beneath the filtered light, immaculate and cold. The chandeliers gleamed overhead in their usual silent arroga