Page 18 of Monsters' Manor

Silas’s shadows encircle me again, and he lets out a low, harsh curse, but there’s nothing he can do as my knees give out and the ground rushes up to meet me.

6

“Rosemary,” Silas says in a clipped, worried voice, his shadowed form crouching down where I’m on my hands and knees in the grass.

Magick drain is a bitch.

I’ve only experienced it once before, right afterThe Incident.

I’d been useless then, too. Exhausted, unable to defend myself or explain away the burning file cabinet in the corner of my office.

Murphy, my asshole of a boss, had been positively fucking gleeful during the whole thing. Saving the day with a fire extinguisher. Directing the firefighters when they’d arrived. Pinning the whole mess squarely on me and barely containing his delight when the police officer showed up to speak to me.

What he didn’t say a damned word about?

Murphy didn’t say a damned word about the fact that he’d asked me out not even an hour beforehand, and I’d turned him down. He didn’t mention he’d taken it like an entitled fucking child, disappearing into his office for a few minutes of slamming desk drawers and muffled cursing before stepping back out with a sharp grin on his face. He conveniently forgot he’d told me I needed to work late that night, and that I needed to be in the office that weekend, delivering the news with cruel satisfaction.

I knew exactly what that meant, what kind of retribution I could expect for simply saying ‘no’.

And it wasn’t until after—after the file cabinet was smoldering and my whole body felt drained—that the horror of what I’d unintentionally done washed over me.

“Rosemary.”

Silas’s voice is garbled, like I’m hearing it from underwater.

I blink, and blink again, until the tangled grass beneath me comes into focus, and I can feel cool night air rasping in and out of my lungs.

Unlike when I burned out after reacting to Murphy’s cruelty, however, now I feel…

Incredible. Exhausted, yes, depleted and breathless, but also so fucking satisfied I got to put that drunk creep in his place.

“Rosemary.”

“Rose,” I murmur. “Remember? It’s alright if you want to call me Rose.”

Silas lets out a shaky breath that might be a laugh, but mostly just sounds like concern. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

His shadows are still worrying around me. Brushing against my arms and face, sweeping my hair back and away from my sweaty, clammy neck.

Wait… sweeping my hair away from my neck?

Startled, I crane my head around to see that darkness of his actuallymovingmy hair. Like phantom fingers in the night.

Silas doesn’t even seem to be aware he’s doing it.

“Um,” I say, glancing pointedly at the shadow, then up at him. “Are they usually able to do that?”

As soon as I ask, the shadows pull away and my hair falls softly against my neck.

“I… no, they aren’t.”

I can’t read his tone, and don’t have the mental capacity to think about what that means as I concentrate on breathing and blinking away the rest of the blur from my eyes.

Silas keeps his shadows to himself, but stays crouched near me as I pull myself back together. There’s an unspoken question in the air, but he waits for me to speak instead of asking it.

“Magick drain,” I say a couple of minutes later, rocking back so I’m kneeling in the grass.

Silas curses under his breath. “I’m sorry, Rose. That was thoughtless of me. I should have never—”

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