Page 165 of At the Mercy of Midnight
Wood scraped, a chair being pushed away. “Who?”
Amelia looked up. Aurora stood, hands on the table, rage on her face.
“I’m sorry, Aurora,” she offered pathetically, her head shaking, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Silas’ sister shoved the chair once more, the wooden feet thumping across the floor before she stalked away. The front door slammed as she left.
A heavy silence fell, a hollow one. No one seemed to know what to say.
Amelia stared down at the table, knowing she had more to share, but didn’t know if this was the moment. So, she left the rest of the truth for later, so that for a little while longer, they can just sit in the grief, the loss.
And remember Silas Finley.
Amelia lay in the narrow bed of the guest room, the same room she had shared with Silas only a few nights before. She stared at the ceiling now, eyes wide open, the darkness pressing in, but she didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Silas’ coat lay beside her on the bed, her fingers tangled in the sleeve. She hadn’t let it go since returning.
She felt hollow.
Not numb, not broken.
Just empty.
Like everything inside her had been scooped out when he vanished, leaving behind a vessel shaped like him, filled only with silence.
She knew midnight was nearly upon her, the first one since Silas had been torn from her, and she dreaded it. She dreaded the moment that today became tomorrow, and she wouldn’t find herself with him, in his warm, safe arms. Amelia didn’t want that dreadful confirmation that he was truly gone, that he would never return.
Amelia felt a tear slip down her temple.
She turned her head towards the clock, watching the seconds tick by in time with the sadness in her heart.
Midnight descended as the hand hit twelve, and she sobbed when nothing happened. Her body didn’t tear through space. She remained on her back, on the same bed. No one appeared before her, with her. She was utterly alone, and Silas was…
Amelia sat up with a startled gasp.
There was something.
A tug in her chest.
She blinked, breath catching. It was faint. So faint she thought she might have imagined it. But it was there, like a whisper across the bond that was supposed to be gone.
She clutched the coat tighter, her other hand resting in the middle of her chest where she had felt it and spoke aloud, her voice hoarse. “Silas…?”
Nothing.
She closed her eyes and reached inwards, the way she always had when looking for him, when trying to find him, when she could feel his thoughts brushing against hers like wind against skin.
Amelia pushed past the grief. Past the guilt. Past the fear.
And there…there it was. A flicker.
Not a voice or a word. But a feeling, a heartbeat. A warmth, faint and distant.
She gasped softly, her eyes burning with sudden tears.
He wasn’tgone. Not fully.
What had Lyana said, when Amelia uttered that Silas was in the Midnight Realm?
