Page 20 of Monsters' Manor

The next fifteen minutes pass uneventfully as I get everything squared away for the evening. When I’m finished up, I lock the booth behind me and find Silas waiting in a shadow just outside the door.

He’s been quiet as he waits, and when he sees me walking toward him he moves immediately, a tendril of darkness reaching out to stroke my shoulder.

“Ready,” I say with a smile. “And I’ve been staying in one of the cottages down the hill, so it’s not too far to walk.”

Silas nods, and we head off into the night. Still, as we go his darkness seems unsettled, swirling and agitated, like it’s picking up on his own turbulent mood.

“Out with it,” I say with a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. “Whatever you’re still worried about.”

He cuts me a look, then shakes his head. “I’m not… worried. Just sorry. I should have thought before I did what I did back there.”

“And whatwasthat?” I ask, no hint of accusation in my voice. “You can share your shadows?”

He’s silent for a few moments before he answers. “It’s something my magick allows me to do. Form bonds and create an energy flow of sorts. A way to pass power to another being.”

“Is that how you travel so easily between one place and another? Energy flows, and all that?”

“Yes, that’s right. Though, my abilities would be stronger if I were tethered to an anchor and—”

His words cut off abruptly, and he makes a low, disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, like he just thought better of whatever it is he was about to say.

It’s clear he’s not going to elaborate, and I almost don’t push him on it.

As we continue down the hill and through the woods toward the cottages, the night presses in close between us. It might be better to bite my tongue, to not ask for answers that will pull me deeper into him, to this place, to the magick I’m still not sure I want any part of. But when one of his shadows whispers against the back of my hand, sparking a bit of that same dark power we shared earlier, I decide to throw those reservations to the wind.

“An anchor?” I ask. “You mentioned it the other night, but didn’t explain what it is.”

Silas nods slowly and takes a deep breath. “My kind craves connection more than anything. It’s intrinsic to our nature. An anchor is a strong attachment we form that tethers us to the world. And with that tether comes a symbiosis of sorts, a channel of connection that ties a shade to their anchor in a very deep and profound way.”

“And it would make you more powerful? In what way?”

“That I don’t know. It depends on the nature of the connection, and on the magick of the shade and anchor themselves.”

I hum low in my throat, considering that. “Well, that sounds a hell of a lot cooler than my magick. All I can do is move stuff and set things on fire.”

“Really? Telekinesis and fire-wielding are no meager gifts, Rose.”

The way he says it, with a note of quiet awe in his voice, makes my throat tighten unexpectedly. I cough away the sensation.

“Yeah, I mean, they would be. If I had any kind of control over them.”

It’s more than I meant to say, and I fight a flinch as Silas looks sharply over at me.

“Is that why Odelia wants you to work with Ren?”

“It is,” I admit, deciding I owe him some honesty in exchange for what he’s given me. “And why I agreed to it.”

As we approach my cottage, I tell him. About what happened in the market with Renwick. About my conversation with Odelia. I keep some parts to myself—all the gnarliest bits about my family and my background—but by the time I’ve finished we’re standing on my little front porch, just beneath the flickering light next to the door I’ve been meaning to fix.

“So you’re working with Ren now,” Silas murmurs.

“I am.” I try to read his reaction and come up short.

Silas’s expression is inscrutable as he peers down at me. When his shadowed hand reaches out for mine, I instinctively try to close my own around it. All I manage to do is sink through him, and as we both stare down at where his darkness meets my skin, he lets out a short huff of breath.

“Does it bother you?” I ask before I can think better of it, voice barely above a whisper. “Not being able to… touch?”

“If you’d asked me a month ago, I would have said no,” he says wryly, every bit as quiet as I am.

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