The room smells different from the rest of the castle, older somehow.Paper and leather and dust layered with something faintly sharp, like old smoke or ink.Light filters through tall windows, illuminating a broad desk scarred with use.Old guitars line the wall.Music is scattered on the desk, and some Diamond record awards line the walls, while others sit waiting to be hung.So much paraphernalia.
This room feels lived in.
Isla moves closer to the desk.
Her fingers brush a stack of loose papers, receipts, handwritten notes, a folded sheet of hotel stationery with a city name scrawled across the top.Glasgow.Berlin.Los Angeles.Lives reduced to ink and impulse.
She lifts a photograph.
Keir stands in the center, arm slung around a group of people she doesn’t recognize.Everyone is laughing.Everyone looks alive in a way that has nothing to do with fame and everything to do with belonging.
Isla’s throat tightens.
“You look happy,” she murmurs, then stiffens at the sound of her own voice in the room.
She shouldn’t be here.But she doesn’t care.He’s her father.He’s dead, and she’s going to go through his things and hopefully find the answers she needs to her questions.
That thought doesn’t stop her from opening a notebook.The handwriting is unmistakable, fast, slanted, and impatient.Lyrics crowd the margins, crossed out and rewritten, emotion spilling wherever it can fit.
One line is underlined so hard, the paper nearly tears.
She deserves better than my silence.
Isla’s breath catches.
Her hand trembles as she closes the notebook, heart hammering.This isn’t curiosity anymore.
This is intrusion.
She opens a drawer.
Cassette tapes.
Dozens of them, stacked carefully, labeled in Keir’s slanted handwriting.Dates.Cities.Some with names she recognizes, bandmates, producers.Others with nothing but a time written beside them.
Her fingers curl around one.
“That’s not for you.”
Callum’s voice cuts through the room like a blade.
Isla spins.
He stands in the doorway, broad shoulders filling the frame, expression closed and unreadable.He hasn’t raised his voice.He hasn’t moved toward her.
Which makes it worse.
“You said you’d help,” Isla says.
His jaw tightens.“I said maybe.”
“You followed me.”
“I followed the sound of a door that shouldn’t have been opened.”
Her grip tightens around the tape.“You don’t get to decide that.”
“This room isn’t part of the estate tour.”
