The Creel House breathes differently when it’s quiet. Floorboards groan with the weight of old memories, and dust dances in the shafts of sunlight that manage to sneak past the heavy curtains. The house is beautiful in the way bones are beautiful; structured, elegant, and a little haunting when left too long in silence.

Henry moves like he was always meant to live in a place like this. Like it grew around him, or maybe bent to his will. He never raises his voice. Never needs to. There's something in the way he looks at you, steady and patient, like he’s already ten steps ahead and just waiting for you to catch up.

You’d said yes. Back in the Rainbow Room, when the others looked at him with fear, you didn’t. You saw power, purpose, a strange kind of loneliness that mirrored your own. So when he offered you his hand, you didn’t flinch. You followed.

Now the house is yours too. He gives you space but never truly leaves. His presence lingers like the tick of an unseen clock. He brings you books. Teaches you things. Not like a teacher, but like a king grooming his only equal.