Page 33 of Monsters' Manor

Silas laughs again. “He wants to see you succeed, even if the way he goes about it might be a little abrasive.” As he speaks, his gaze wanders skyward, like he’s lost in some memory. “It’s just part of who he is, and I don’t think he’d be capable of changing even if he wanted to.”

There it is again, that edge of affectionate sadness. Something tangled and painful, a history between them that’s probably not a particularly happy one given how they act around each other now.

I reach a hand to where Silas’s shadow rests on the railing, and though my fingers sink right through, his power is there. It presses back against me as Silas pulls himself from whatever he was remembering.

He smiles again. The softness there, the reassurance of his words, all of it reminds me once more what a giant idiot I’ve been over the past few hours.

What if I’m the only one making things more of a catastrophe than they need to be? In my panic and fear, I ran out on Renwick when he was just trying to help me, and then snapped at Silas for doing the same. And here he is, still sitting with me, still patient with me.

“Why are you both being so nice to me?”

I fight back a cringe at the way the question comes out—small and insecure. Silas, though, still has nothing but kindness in his voice as he answers.

“I can only speak for myself, but from the moment you arrived here, I sensed you might be in need of a friend.”

“Is that something else your shadows picked up on?” I try for a joke, remembering what he told me earlier about being able to sense me sleeping.

Another pulse of dark power against my hand. “No, Rose, they didn’t. Those beautiful brown eyes of yours told me everything I needed to know. I hate to tell you this, darling, but you’re not as much of a mystery as you might try to be.”

An unlikely smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “I’m an open book, huh?”

Silas moves closer and sinks to the worn wooden floorboards until he might almost be kneeling. Tendrils of his darkness reach out to brush up and down my arms.

“Well now, I don’t know if that’s entirely true. There’s much, much more I’d like to get to know about the parts of yourself you keep hidden.”

His shadows keep caressing, and I lean closer. He meets me half-way until we’re in an almost-embrace. Phantom, night-kissed wind brushes against my skin, and that familiar hum of power sparks higher in my veins.

“You said you…feltme sleeping. What do you mean by that?”

When I tilt my head back and catch a glimpse of Silas’s face, he looks a little abashed. “It’s a part of my power. A part of who I am. Perceiving energy from others.”

I consider that for a moment. “Must be kind of tough, having to filter through everyone here and take in all that energy.”

“I’m not able to feel… everyone. At least not the way I feel you.”

All his darkness pauses, waiting for my reaction to that soft declaration.

I raise a hand, and a tendril of shadow is right there to meet it. Twisting between my fingers, ghosting over my palm and down my arm. Like a reaching vine, it encircles my forearm, binding the two of us together.

“How do I feel?”

He laughs, the sound of it a little hoarse this time. “It’s hard for me to describe.”

“You feel like midnight to me. Your power. It’s darkness and starlight and peace. It’s wonderful, Silas.”

“You’re all fire, Rose,” he rasps, shadows reaching my shoulder and banding around my neck in a gentle collar. “Burning so brightly I can’t look away.”

My whole body aches to touch him, really touch him. To lean in and lay my cheek against his chest and nestle in close, let that darkness of his consume me completely, let it chase away the last of my panic and fear.

But even with that ache coursing through me, this is still bliss. Being held by him, cloaked in the protection of his shadows. It makes me wonder what more there might be, what more he might want from me, what we could be together…

“Would you like to come inside?”

All those shadows go still as death.

11

“Do you want me to come inside?”

---