I stood in my study at midnight, my mother's journal clutched tightly in my hands. The words "Wellspring of Light" seemed to pulse on the page, beckoning to me like a distant beacon in a storm-tossed sea.
"It waits, not in some distant place, but somewhere far more intimate—" The smudged final words of my mother's hidden message haunted me. What had Isabella been trying to tell future generations of Thornes?
The house slept around me. Even Lyra had finally succumbed to exhaustion after days of research and planning. I alone remained awake, drawn to this possibility of healing the void within me.
I locked the study door and settled into my leather chair, arranging candles in a circle around me—not for any mystical purpose, but simply to create a space of focused calm. The dancing flames cast shifting shadows across my mother's journal as I spread it open on my lap.
