Page 151 of At the Mercy of Midnight
She nudged his leg with her foot. “When you were sleeping in Brinkley’s cottage, you were snoring like a dying boar.”
Silas gave her a slow, scandalised look. “Slander! You’re inventing things to cover for the fact thatyousnore.”
“The floorboards rattled while you slept,” she said with humour.
He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, perhaps my sleep was heavily disturbed by Brinkley’s decor. Those creepy paintings of his? Enough to disturb anyone’s sleep.”
Amelia laughed, a small one full of surprise, and the sound loosened something in his chest.
Silence fell again, not awkward, but weighted with the knowledge of what the morning would bring them. Of what they stood to lose.
Silas shifted, stretching his arm out to her, inviting her closer without speaking. Amelia tucked herself into his side without hesitation, her cheek against the top of his shoulder.
She spoke quietly. “I had hoped there would be more time.”
He swallowed, eyes looking to the darkness of the tent’s roof. “For what?”
She sighed softly. “For everything. For figuring out who I’m meant to be. What all of this…the magic and science and madness…what it was all for. For fixing the mess that was my childhood, what my family left behind inside of me.” She wriggled a little, tilting her head to look at him. “For apologising.”
Silas glanced down, meeting her eyes, soft and warm, while holding an immeasurable amount of pain. “You don’t owe anyone an apology.”
She shook her head, eyes stuttering. “I do. To you, especially. For always being so cruel when we were younger. For not listening. For thinking you were nothing more than just another mind to beat instead of…” Her voice thickened, and she had to pause before continuing. “Instead of someone I should have trusted from the beginning.”
Silas sat up, bringing her with him. She turned to face him, eyes cast low.
“Amelia…”
“No, let me say this.” Her voice cracked, roughened by emotion. Silas stayed quiet as she tried to find the words. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear them, as though it were a goodbye, that her faith in their plan might be just as tenuous as his own. She lifted her head and looked at him. “You’ve changedme, Silas. Not forced by this bond, not by magic. Just by being who you are. Fierce and brilliant and kind…and infuriatingly impossible to ignore.”
He stared at her unguarded expression, at the vulnerability in her eyes.
“I don’t regret any part of what brought us here,” she continued. “Not the blades or the bond. I think…it was always supposed to happen, that it truly was our fate. What I do regret is how long it took me to realise who you really are, and how much I wanted this…us.”
Silas exhaled slowly. “I’ve been afraid to want it.”
“I know.”
“I feel like all I’ve been doing is preparing to lose it.”
Amelia reached for his hand, threading their fingers together. “We won’t.”
He watched their joined hands for a moment before answering. “The morning will tell.”
She let out a soft laugh. “No pressure.”
He tried to smile. “You thrive under pressure.”
“You might not know this about me, but I scream into my pillow when I’m under pressure. You’ll see one day.”
When he met her eyes, they sparkled a little, like she was imagining that future, where they could see every part of one another’s lives and experience every moment with each other. It warmed his chest as equally as it made him ache thinking they may never have that.
He reached forwards, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I can’t wait. And you never have to hide those things from me. The fear, the laughs, the anger. I want all of it.”
Amelia swallowed, staring at him like she didn’t quite know what to do with the weight of his words. She leaned into him, their foreheads pressing together, breaths mingling. For a long moment, the world outside ceased to exist.
Then Amelia, voice low and teasing, said, “you still snore, though.”
Silas groaned. “Unbelievable. Poured my little old heart out and that’s your closing statement.”
