A slender, delicate hand pushed open the floor-to-ceiling glass window of the study. The girl stepped onto the balcony, her thick, bright red hair falling loose around her shoulders. She leaned contentedly against the ivory stone railing, letting the warm winter-afternoon sun and cool breeze drift over her.
From the upper floor of the old estate, the view stretched over a broad valley of open fields and rolling hills. A spur of the Rocky Mountains rose behind it, and several streams and small rivers wound through the land.
The Howlett family's old estate, outside Edmonton, stood on level ground partway up a slope. It still retained the architectural style of an eighteenth-century European castle.
Besides the long blue-stone walls following the contours of the mountain and the castle's tall, irregularly arranged main towers, there were several Eastern pavilions with sweeping, upturned eaves.
Down the slope lay hundreds of detached and row-style villas, forming a small town that sprawled along the road descending from the castle.
The endless plains to the west were buried beneath a thick blanket of snow, yet powerful, tall horses still roamed freely, while sturdy cattle and sheep pawed through the snow to graze on the grass beneath it, varying their diet for a change.
Jean Grey wore a blue-green dress and had casually thrown a white sweater over it. She drowsily covered her mouth and yawned.
Her stay at Laura's family estate had been so relaxing that Jean had even developed a habit of taking afternoon naps. After standing in the cool breeze for a while to wake herself up, she wandered through the quaint study with interest.
The wide room was filled with bookshelves made of glossy redwood and some kind of unidentified black timber. The air carried a faint woody fragrance. Alongside thousands of