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It stopped there.

The estate knew me. It didn’t own me.

Bryony kept pace at my side. She didn’t fill the walk with assurances. Her shoulder touched my arm once when the ground dipped, then moved away. The contact was warm, brief and enough.

The main gate appeared between the trees.

One stone pillar had a fresh crack running through it. The ironwork hung straight again, held by a temporary brace that looked strong enough to survive a siege and ugly enough to offend every architect who had ever worked on Harrowmere.

Mara noticed where I was looking. “It opens.”

“An excellent quality in a gate.”

Her mouth shifted, but she left the answer there.

That was new as well. A small joke didn’t have to become a contest.

We reached the boundary. Gravel ended at the iron bars. The narrow lane continued on the other side, damp and silver in the evening light before it curved into the trees.

I had stood here more times than I could count.

During the first year of the curse, I came every night. I gripped these bars until rust marked my hands. I tried anger, patience, speed and force. The result never changed. The magic caught inside my chest and turned every step back towards the house.

Later, I stopped coming.

Other people passed through while I remained. Lenora and members of the household left to deal with business beyond the grounds. Vehicles arrived with blood, food and news from a world I could see only in pieces. Every person who crossed carried some part of that world back with them.

I learned to ask fewer questions. It was easier to act as though Harrowmere contained everything worth knowing than admit how badly I wanted to stand on the other side of these pillars.

The gate became worse than a locked door. It became proof that the world continued without me.

Now a new bolt crossed the repaired section. The bars were free of chains. The lock waited in the middle, old brass scraped bright where Mara had forced it back into use.

I put the key in.

It stuck halfway.

Mara drew breath behind me.

I twisted harder. Metal ground, the lock gave and the bolt slid free with a scrape that travelled up my arm.

“Repaired,” I said.

“Enough,” Mara replied.

I pushed one side of the gate. The hinges groaned, then the gap widened.

Nobody spoke.

They weren’t waiting for a king to perform a ceremony. They were watching a man approach the place that held him for more than a century. That difference should ease the pressure in my chest.

It didn’t.

My body remembered the boundary.

The old curse wasn’t there, but expectation tightened every muscle. My heart drove one hard beat against the healing wound. Pain flashed across my ribs.

Bryony moved closer. Her hand stopped short of mine.