It was respect.

Chapter 10 — Scheming From Afar

Alaric Ravenscroft, however, had not spent a decade building a cage only to watch someone quietly unlock it.

From a distance — barred from the estate, his physician turned away at the gates, his men rebuffed — he did what men like him always do when force fails: he reached for paper.

He understood, better than anyone, that the true will was moving toward the light, that once the transfer of his late wife’s estate to Cosima finalized, his control of the Ravenscroft empire would end.

He had perhaps weeks.