Page 147 of At the Mercy of Midnight
Brinkley, ever the calm in the storm, had just poured Amelia a cup of tea. It sat forgotten on a side table, steaming in the tense quiet as the preparations were made.
A door creaked open, and Silas stepped inside with Aurora closely following before shutting the door once more. Their arms were full of supplies from the market to prepare for their journey. New arcane lamps and crystals, Waystone chips, food, small tents, and fire crystals.
They would need to leave soon.
“The markets are so empty,” Aurora remarked as she set down an armload of supplies.
“Mm-hm,” Brinkley hummed, looking up from a scroll he had been unfurling and re-rolling. “East Town has been emptying for weeks. The Rift is getting too close for most peoples’ comfort levels.”
They all looked around at each other uneasily. Amelia felt the weight of it all drop heavily into her stomach, and it roiled,threatening to bring up the sandwich she had forced herself to eat earlier.
A hand touched her lightly on the back, and she turned her eyes to Silas. He looked as pale as she felt, as worried as her stomach told her she was.
“Is it time, then?” Halpert said in his low, calm tone. He had stood from his chair and walked over to check through their supplies.
Silas nodded once. “There’s nothing more we can do. We need to be in the middle of the Rift before midnight tomorrow night and we can’t take any risks of not getting there in time. Of failing like the others.” He looked at Amelia, his hand falling away from her back. “We leave in no more than thirty minutes. Make sure you have everything, yeah?”
Amelia swallowed the lump in her throat but nodded.
A small noise had them all looking over to Aurora, who placed her hand across her mouth to stifle the sob she had let out. They all stood, the room rippling with restrained panic.
Silas walked over to pull his sister into a tight hug. “Hey, we’re ready. This is going to work.”
“We’ve mitigated as many risks as we can,” Halpert offered, holding their journal with all the final changes written within. “It should work.”
Aurora pulled away from her brother to scowl slightly at the older man. “Should?”
Halpert looked up, as though a bit startled. “There are just so many variables, but I do believe we’ve looked at all possible outcomes.”
“Oh, how very comforting,” Aurora snapped, voice thick with sarcasm and barely contained emotion.
Silas patted her on the shoulder before shifting away. Amelia could see it on his face, the uncertainty.
She felt it, too.
“Let’s get our things and go,” Amelia said before more could be said.
Silence settled through the room again, only broken by the ticking of the clock on the mantel, that slowly pulled away more time from them.
Amelia packed her bag, checking and rechecking that she had everything, ignoring the movements of the others behind her. It was a subdued environment, knowing that goodbyes would be taking place in a handful of minutes.
“I hate this,” Amelia heard Aurora murmur softly from somewhere behind her. “I hate how brave you have to be.”
Silas sighed softly. “I’m not trying to be brave,” he said. “I want to do what’s right, and I want to live. But the two aren’t exactly matching up at the moment.”
The words struck something in her. In all of them, it seemed. When Amelia turned around, she saw that everyone was looking at Silas with wary expressions. There was a collective breath, drawn and held, within the room.
It was Brinkley who spoke first. “You’ve both come farther than any of us believed possible. You’ve rewritten magic and broken every law of reason and theory. What you’re about to attempt is unprecedented, but so are all discoveries in history, magical or not.” Brinkley paused, then added, “if anyone can pull this off, it’s the two of you.”
She tried to smile at him, one of her oldest friends, but wasn’t sure if she managed it.
A distant tolling of a bell had her heart leaping. Another hour had struck, and the sun would begin its descent behind the mountains too soon. It was time to go.
She pulled on her pack, Silas moving to do the same.
The next few minutes were a breathless whirlwind of hugs and farewells.
Silas had even given Brinkley a one-armed hug with a, “thanks Brinkles.”
