LAYLA
James stopped bringing in flowers, and somehow that small detail changed everything.
You would think it wouldn't matter all that much—what's a handful of wilting petals in a place like this? But I had grown used to them. Those little bursts of color left on my desk or windowsill, like he was trying to bring a little piece of the outside world into this cold, endless castle. Without them, my room felt emptier, colder somehow, and I could swear the silence crept in a bit thicker each day.
It wasn't as though I was getting warmth anywhere else. The other servants had started treating me like I was just another piece of furniture—a fixture to work around, but not to acknowledge.
It didn't happen all at once, this shift in how the servants treated me. It was more like a slow unraveling, little pieces of warmth dropping away until suddenly, there was just… ice.
