Page 84 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
She thinks back to Dorian and Lu, and how powerless she feels to ask or to interfere. Perhaps, when Soren said that Dorian lost someone, he hadn’t meant to death. Perhaps he had meant this. A marriage. Perhaps Lu had chosen someone else. Perhaps Dorian had, once, in a rare moment of weakness, thought a simple village girl beneath him.
Perhaps he had learnt from it.
Perhaps this was why he was the way he was.
She will never know unless she asks, but she is not a creature of courage. To spare them both pain, she will shoulder hers alone. She is well practised in that art, after all.
Selene wants to ask Dorian about Lu or Luna and whatever the history is between them, but she doesn’t know how to. She reminds herself that no part of her arrangement with him includes fidelity. He can do whatever he likes with Lu. It isn’t a betrayal. It isn’t allowed to hurt this much.
It does anyway.
She keeps herself busy. The renovations on their suite are finally finished. Her new room is everything she had imagined—a bright, sunny space, with soft floral wallpaper that makes the morning light feel golden. Jon’s bed, at last completed, stands proudly at its centre. The polished wood gleams, carved with roses and irises in exquisite detail. It is a work of art, warm and welcoming, nothing like the cold, impersonal furniture she had once known.
She has even converted the former dressing room into a receiving room—a small, private parlour where they can enjoy their nightly games.
Dorian is surprised when he sees it. “A receiving room?” he says, eyeing the arrangement of comfortable chairs, the low table set for their games.
“For us,” she had said simply.
It had made sense when she planned it. But now, with how brief their games have become—how distant Dorian has been—it seems foolish. She’d even papered the walls with floral sage, something between his tastes and hers, and had a small fireplace back onto the bathing room’s chimney to keep the room warm in the winter. She’d prepared this space for a future that doesn’t feel hers anymore.
Dorian smiles at the space. “It’s lovely.”
He says nothing more.
She waits for him that evening, as she always does, but the night stretches on, and he doesn’t come. The unease that has been sitting in her chest hardens into something colder.
The wax in the candles sinking inch by inch. She shuffles the cards between her fingers, then sets them down, staring at the empty chair across from hers.
She tells herself he is merely busy, but the longer she sits alone, the more brittle her patience becomes. He’s been so absent lately, so distracted, his eyes shadowed and distant, like something is gnawing at him from the inside out.
She’s worried about him. She’s frustratedwithhim.
Her tea has gone cold by the time she finally pushes to her feet. Her footsteps echo as she moves through the quiet corridors. Perhaps he lost track of time, she tells herself. Perhaps he simply forgot.
The thought stings more than it should.
Everythingstings more than it should. It’s not even a sting—it’s an ache, a surface burn exposed to the wind, unhealing, blistering.
Dorian Nightbloom was supposed to rescue her. He was not supposed to hurt her.
When she reaches his study, the door is slightly ajar, the faint scent of wax and parchment drifting into the hall. The light inside flickers oddly, not steady like a candle should be. A curl of unease winds through her stomach.
She hesitates for only a moment before pushing the door open—and her breath catches.
Dorian is slumped over his desk, motionless. His candle has tipped, pooling wax across the wood, the flame licking at scattered papers. A smouldering ember flares against the edge of a book.
A sharp pulse of fear grips her chest.
“Dorian!”
Selene doesn’t think. She rushes into the room, grabbing the candle first, and yanks it out of the flames. It’s probably not the best course of action, but it’s the first one that comes to mind. There’s a pitcher near the window. She seizes it, splashing the water over the desk, over Dorian. He jerks awake as a few stray papers drift into the air, still spasming with flames. Selene sweeps the burning papers onto the floor, stamping them out before the fire can spread. Dorian attempts to assist her, but he’s stumbling around, wheezing and coughing.
Finally, the flames vanish. Smoke curls into the air, acrid and sharp.
Footsteps thunder behind her.
Soren bursts into the study, taking in the scene in an instant. Ariella arrives shortly after him, Rookwood after.
