Little wonder there was never 'home' after this. What desire for such a thing when this is what the word would have evoked; a raging wreck of a father that mouldered and crumbled like his keep, bitter and accusatory and brutal and inescapable for that he held in his claws what seemed the one bright spot in it all. Who wielded his own daughter—for that had to be Byerly's sister—as a weapon.

It's so different, so terribly different from the sunlit solar where she and Genevieve had played. Their doting father with his soft looks, the way he always laughed and yielded to their fancies even when their coiffed and lovely mother, smelling gently of the lavender she favored in both color and scent, made such faces at him. Smiling staff, the sound of Cerise singing at the piano. Everything was clean and vibrant, and this? Next to this?

Ah, Byerly.

But it only serves to strengthen his spirits. Pull them more fully across to draw on her useless anger and sorrow.