(Jace's POV)
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"What the hell is this place?" I muttered under my breath after a while, my voice barely carrying over the suffocating silence that clung to the street like a second skin.
There was nothing remotely welcoming about The Abbey. Every inch of it seemed soaked in despair, as if the ground itself had absorbed decades of forgotten sorrows and was now bleeding them out into the atmosphere. The air was thick, heavy, pressing against my chest until it felt like I could barely breathe. Even the sunlight, fierce as it was, seemed powerless here—its heat casting more shadow than light, warping everything into something bleak and uninviting.
I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jacket, trying to appear casual, but every instinct in me was wound tight, ready to snap. We kept moving, our footsteps strangely muffled against the cracked pavement.
