After safely spending the winter break of the second year—an event where Ethan and Harold were originally supposed to die—Ethan and I successfully advanced to the third year without incident.

To be honest, I was a bit uneasy even up until the last day we stayed at the Blackwood estate. I kept imagining a scenario where there might be some kind of force in this world that compelled events to follow the original storyline, and that villain would suddenly show up to kill Ethan.

I had similar dreams probably a dozen times while staying at the Blackwood estate. In these …