Page 22 of At the Mercy of Midnight
To SilasbloodyFinley.
Amelia looked back up to him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He laughed softly then, a small puff of air as though he had seen that reaction coming. Silas looked away from her and shook his head, the barely-there smile still on his face. “Unfortunately not,” he said in a flat tone. “The way we were brought to each other at midnight leads me to believe that we’ve been magically bonded and forced us to come together at the crux of power.”
“Is there a way to break the bond?”
Silas met her gaze again. “I don’t know, I never spoke much with my parents about it. It wasn’t a topic that interested me or pertained to my research. But if anyone knows, my mother will. I suggest we travel to see her.”
Yet again, Amelia felt flabbergasted by his words. “We? You want me to travel to your home?”
He raised a brow at her. “Unless you’d like to leave it to me to figure this out, though something tells me that’s not in your nature.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I just think perhaps the library in the Lux Spire would have everything we need. We should travel north.”
Silas leaned back with his hands stretched out behind him and let out a deep sigh. “You would actually want us to scour a library for thepotentialto find something useful, rather than travel to my ancestral home to ask someone who’s spent years researching the exact topic? Is your ability to trust so compromised?”
Something shot across her midriff, a slashing of pain that had her flinching. Amelia stood abruptly and turned away from him, stalking over to her small table. She picked up an upended book on the way and made a show of slowly smoothing out the pages before she responded.
Trust was not something that came easily to her, especially not with someone who has historically proven so untrustworthy over the years.
“I don’t trustyou,” she said unkindly but not untruthfully, keeping her back to him. “The last few days notwithstanding, you have made a great show in the past of making my life difficult at every turn.”
Another deep sigh was heard.
She flipped the book closed and finally turned back to him, leaning back against the table with both hands. Silas watched her with a wary expression on his face.
“Fine,” he relented. “We have an uneasy history, but you give it right back, so don’t pretend it’s one-sided.” Silas made a face at her, daring her to negate him. She didn’t. “But this impacts us both,” he said in a reasoning tone, “so I wouldn’t sabotage this.”
Her tense shoulders deflated just a little. He had made his point, and it was a reasonable one. She thought about her response, but it seemed she took too long to answer him.
He rolled his eyes and looked away again, speaking before she could. “If it really bothers you, I can travel south to see mymother, and you can go north to your precious library. Then we can compare notes on what we each find via Wayglass.”
She stared incredulously. “Are you serious?”
He nodded and shrugged in unison, still not looking at her.
“Finley,” she said slowly as though explaining something to a five-year-old, “you realise that before midnight I was by my tent, and you were by yours.” The tone of her voice brought his gaze back to her, eyes narrowing. “When midnight struck, we were brought directly halfway to each other, meeting in the centre near the fire.” She saw the comprehension dawning on his face, but she still had to make her final point. “If I travel north, and you travel south…we’d be pulled halfway across the land, and we’d end up in the middle of the Rift with no lights, no protection. We’d be ripped to shreds.”
“Yes, yes,” he said with a sigh, “a terrible suggestion. Then you’ll have to suck it up and travel south with me.”
She fell quiet again before agreeing. It felt so utterly wrong to be tying herself to someone like Silas. If it were a few days ago, she would declare herself insane for contemplating the notion. She supposed there was little choice in the matter. Amelia was tied to him whether she wanted to be or not. Magic didn’t lie.
“Alright,” Amelia finally said, “we’ll travel to the Shadowlands in the morning. This expedition is over.” She set her face into a hard expression, expecting him to argue with her but he merely nodded in agreement, surprising her yet again.
He needed to stop doing that.
“Agreed. The Rift is too dangerous not only for us, with whatever we’ve unleashed, but for the others. Midnight tonight was a lot more unstable than last night,” Silas said. “I don’t want to be here for the next one.”
Amelia shivered at the thought of being in the Rift when another midnight struck. She wandered over to the corner where her sleeping bag had ended up and fetched it, shaking it out. “We pack up at first light.”
Silas got himself to his feet, wincing slightly as he did and leaning heavily onto his other leg. “If anyone is still awake, I’ll let them know. Though I can’t imagine sleeping after that.”
Amelia just nodded.
He limped over to the tents entrance, before turning back to her once more. His blue eyes tracked over her in the same way they did when he had first entered. When he met her gaze, Silas said in a low voice, “you were really brave tonight.”
Amelia’s lips parted.
