Where the Light Breaks
Forty-one shards of cobalt glass lie waiting in a steel tray, and Elara Winslow has one chance to set them right. Summoned to Ashworth Conservatory by the Trust Director Maren Ashford, she must restore the shattered east panel before the estate is lost forever, a condition tied to the legacy of her late brother, Aldric. The work is painstaking, precise, and conducted under the watchful presence of Tomás and his apprentices, Jin and Petra. But the real complication arrives in the form of Caelen Darrow, the brooding heir whose own family fractures run as deep as the cracks in the glass. As Elara works the kiln, her grief for Aldric and Caelen's silence over the disappearance of Reginald Darrow begin to pull them into orbit around one another. Margot Voss, an old friend, offers uneasy counsel from the studio, while a letter found among the conservatory's restoration files surfaces an amethyst memory that changes everything Elara thought she knew about who broke the glass, and why. With the deadline closing in and the binding compound cooling, Elara must choose: finish the panel as she was hired to, and walk away with her heart intact, or stay long enough to piece together a truth that could save the estate, the craft, and the man she's only just learned to see. The light is waiting to break. She has to decide which side of it she'll stand on.