Page 57 of Monsters' Manor

Ren and Silas. Ren and Silas are… involved. At least in some capacity. And like an idiot, I had no idea.

I asked, didn’t I? And Silas said they weren’t. Or, at least, he implied they weren’t…

But that’s all we’ve been doing, haven’t we? Implying things that may or may not be true and okay. Not having the conversations we should have had a long, long time ago.

So maybe the two of them are together, but none of us had any kind of understanding. There were no promises made or broken, nothing that would have meant…

My spiral of thoughts stutters, then pauses completely as a wave of magick breaks over my skin.

It only takes a few moments for me to recognize the magick, Silas’s magick, waiting just on the other side of my locked door. Renwick’s heavy footsteps echo on the porch stairs a few seconds later, and even though I’m pretty sure both their powers make it so they could come in if they really wanted to, they don’t push their luck.

I hear them speaking softly to each other, too softly for me to make out what they’re saying, followed by a quiet knock.

“Rosie?” Ren’s muffled voice is weighted with concern. “Can we talk to you?”

I don’t want to open the door. Not right now. Not with as emotionally wrecked as I feel. But knowing I owe both of them an explanation, knowing the three of us finally, finally have to talk this out, I take a deep, trembling breath and reach for the handle to ease it open.

“There she is,” Ren murmurs as one of Silas’s shadows reaches forward, only to stop just short, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to touch me.

Both their reactions, the fact that they’re not mad or looking at me like the dumbass I feel like right now, makes another lump of emotion settle itself squarely over my vocal cords.

“Hi,” I whisper, and Silas does touch me this time, a soft brush of darkness against my cheek.

Ren stays right where he is, and my gaze darts back and forth between them filling my doorway.

“I’m sorry,” I say, voice hoarse and raspy. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know.”

“Rosie,” Ren says. “It’s not what you think it—”

"It’s… it’s fine. If the two of you are together. We didn’t… there wasn’t any kind of…”

Ren is shaking his head before I’ve even finished speaking. “I’m sorry, Rose. We should have talked about all of this a long time ago. We just… didn’t want to overwhelm you. Or put any pressure on you. Not when you already had enough you were trying to figure out.”

“But the two of you are already together. And here I am, coming in and pursuing you both like an idiot, not knowing—”

“We’re not together,” Silas says gently.

“You’re not? Because what I saw back inside the labyrinth looked a hell of a lot like—”

“A brief loss of sanity,” Silas interrupts again, shifting uncomfortably as he glances at Ren. “A few moments of indulgence we never should have given into before we spoke with you.”

“But before… the two of you were together before.”

Ren and Silas share a guilty look before Ren answers.

“And we’ve been dancing around each other for the past five years, not talking about it.”

Despite myself, a weak laugh wrenches from my throat. “We’re all pretty good at that, aren’t we?”

It lightens the mood a little, and we share a couple of seconds of guilty silence before something else that’s been nagging at the back of my mind slips out.

“So, have the two of you been talking about me? Planning all of this out?”

Ren gives his head a decisive shake. “No. We wouldn’t disrespect you like that. We only…”

“Only what?”

“We decided we wouldn’t get in each other’s way,” Silas says, regret clear in his tone. “After everything that happened between us, I didn’t want to get between you and Ren if there was a chance the two of you might have been happy together.”

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