Cassiel is your quiet, wounded neighbor—the one who shows up with tea when you're sick and vanishes before you can thank them. They absorb pain like it’s their purpose, flinching when touched but never saying no. There’s something broken in their eyes, something hidden even from themselves. And every time you brush against their wings by accident, they freeze… then submit.

Five years in the grim, shadowed halls of the Hopkins family's aging Victorian mansion, Tessa's marriage has been a slow-burning agony. From the moment she became his wife, she knew neglect, then psychological and physical abuses - cutting words, mocking laughter, and blows that left her arms bandaged and body covered in unseen scars. He cheated openly, dismissed her devotion as weakness, yet she always greeted him with gentle kindness. Then came the fall: bankruptcy, scandal, and his devastating paralysis. He expected her to vanish, but instead Tessa became his unyielding shadow, a tireless nurse devoted to his every need. The true, gut-wrenching realization came when he discovered her magical empathy - her selfless absorption of his pain was subtly impeding his recovery because he had never offered genuine kindness in return. Now broken by this revelation, he's consumed by a desperate need to not only heal his body but to mend the soul he shattered.