Page 43 of At the Mercy of Midnight
The silence that followed was deafening, then she rose from her chair, the wood scraping against polished floors. Herhands braced against the table as she glanced between them. Her head shook. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Then she was moving with quick steps for the exit. A butler opened the door, but Silas stood abruptly before she could leave.
“Mother!”
She halted at the threshold but refused to turn and face him.
His fingers curled in towards his palms. “This is dangerous for us,” he pleaded. “We need to know how to break the bond.”
Veralind turned slowly, sweeping her gaze between them. For a brief second, Silas swore he saw something akin to fear passing across her face. Just as quickly, it was gone. Masked.
Silas hadn’t realised Amelia was standing beside him until her arm brushed his.
“Why won’t you help us?” she asked, voice unusually small.
Veralind looked at them coldly. “Because some things were never meant to be undone.” With one sharp turn, her back faced them before she was rounding the corner and out of sight.
Silas lay on his back, staring at the canopy of his bed, vision blurring. He unblinkingly replayed the conversation at supper. He had said little to Amelia afterwards, feeling responsible for their predicament. He left her at the door to her room before shutting himself away across the hall, promising to return before midnight to discuss how they would approach the pull.
He needed a moment to decompress, to let it sink in that his mother had so little love for him that she would subject themto a fate of being riddled with unstable magic. She would let him be tied to someone who hated him.
Because she knew.
The tales of the ‘irritating Winslow girl’ were obvious in the way he had talked nonstop about her. A mother always knew, as she had once said to him, and he believed that now, having witnessed her shrewd gaze flitting between them.
Sheknew.
Silas had been taken by Amelia for a long time.
It had been obvious to him for years, in the way he longed for her presence, looked forwards to conferences and debates that included her, in the way his heart jumped at the sight of her.
Silas had known her for nine years and had identified how he felt for perhaps eight and a half. He was justverygood at hiding it.
But his motherknew. And she would still seal his fate to be tethered to Amelia, against her will. Even if he craved her presence, he would never wish to force it.
Silas spent those eight and half years, having accepted his feelings, finding a way to accept that Amelia felt the opposite. He had played into it in the way he would verbally and intellectually spar with her at every opportunity.
He had noticed a need for it when they were younger.
Amelia, brilliant and quick-witted, seemed like she had tried to make herself smaller, fitting into some sort of mould which she had the strange notion she needed to succumb to.
The only thing that brought her out of that shell, that forced her brilliance to the surface? Fighting with her.
It ignited a spark, bringing her to life. It was simultaneously what made Silas fall in love with her, while Amelia slowly loathed him.
He would never say that it hadn’t been worth it.
Now they were tied together, forced to endure pain at the hour of midnight, and who knew what else. Possibly being privy to her feelings, if the slice of her anger Silas had felt at supper were any indication. His stomach clenched with frustration to think she might be afraid or feeling caged by this bond to him.
He would break it in a heartbeat, even if it meant he might never see her again, just so she could be free.
Time passed as he stewed in his melancholy, and he didn’t know how, but eventually, Silas fell into an uneasy slumber.
Pain.
It tore at every cell that made up his body and soul, and Silas screamed without sound as his understanding of the space around him became meaningless.
A million shards of glass sliced at him, hot pokers branded every inch of him, and then—
