Page 146 of At the Mercy of Midnight
“Amelia—”
“No,” she said, letting go of him and stepping from the bed to look down at him, voice sharp. “Don’t you dare give up. Don’t try saying goodbye. We didn’t just spend all night rewriting an ancient ritual and risk tearing the fabric of magic apart just for you to back out.”
Silas looked up at her, eyes searching across her face, stormy with all the things he wouldn’t say.
She moved forwards, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t lose you,” Amelia insisted, her voice breaking, “not after everything. Not when I—” She cut herself off, taking a step away again. The silence was louder than anything either of them could say. Silas’ face crumpled for a moment, like he knew what she had been about to say, whether it was something she hadmanaged to admit to herself or not. He stood, hands coming up to cradle her cheeks.
She could see the terrible sadness on his face, before he leaned forwards and kissed her, slow and careful, like he was memorising it. Like he didn’t trust time to hold it for him.
He pulled away. “This isn’t the end,” Silas said. “I promise I’m not giving up. We’ll walk into the ritual together and…”
Amelia swallowed as he trailed off, uncertain what he had been about to say. “Together.”
They climbed into the small bed, the bond between them pulsing softly like a heartbeat shared between two souls.
Amelia fell asleep to her mind conjuring the same thoughts over and over again.
This was not an ending.
This was a beginning.
And they would be ready.
THIRTY-THREE
Brinkley’s cottage was quiet.
It was the kind of tense silence that hummed in the walls and pressed in at your ribs, making it difficult to breathe.
He found Amelia by the window near the front door, arms wrapped around herself and watching the first pale fingers of dawn grasping at the horizon. Her face looked sombre to Silas, etched with an aching tiredness. They had only slept a few hours, the overwhelming details of what was coming for them too much for each to find true rest.
There was a heaviness on his chest as he watched the early morning glow sit against the skin of her cheek, lighting up the edges of her brown curls.
She looked so soft and beautiful, and he had the overwhelming urge to walk up behind her and wrap himself around her, pulling her close so that together they could ward off the cool air of morning.
But it was selfish, to want such things, when he didn’t know what the future held.
Tomorrow night the full moon would rise, so that evening would be their final midnight.
Midnights.
Such a meaningless thing turned paramount through their bonding. They had both started out looking at the time of day as something to be afraid of, something to dread. Now, he would give anything to have thousands of them ahead of him to share with Amelia.
It had turned from something painful, frightening, into something meaningful and beautiful. For weeks, they had negated the effects of the pull by being close to one another. And now he couldn’t imagine not holding her, touching, for every number of midnights that he might have left in his life.
Even if that was only one.
As if sensing him, Amelia turned her head. Silas saw how she tried to mask the fear on her face by sending him a half-smile. But it was in her eyes, so painstakingly stark and unmistakable.
He stepped up behind her, eyes looking out the window. Silas didn’t touch her, though the overwhelming need vibrated beneath his skin. Her presence alone was grounding, solid and real. She followed his gaze, neither needing to say anything as they stood there in silence, watching as the world prepared to rise again, as though their entire world wasn’t about to collapse.
The sitting room was in a state of chaos. The number of books and papers littering every surface, drawings and equations etched into walls and on floorboards, half-empty cups and plates scattered with crumbs, was immense.
Brinkley had produced a chalkboard halfway through the morning, and it now outlined scribbles of frantic genius of the new ritual sequence, ancient runes, and hastily corrected lines of passage that Amelia and Silas would need to recite.
Fabian paced like a caged animal, jaw set tight and wild eyes alight as he read over the same lines of translated scripts.
Halpert sat at a desk pushed into the corner, elbows on his knees and hands woven together in a prayer-like pose. Though he wasn’t praying, Amelia knew, he was calculating. Weighing the risks and searching for anything that they might have missed.
