Page 53 of At the Mercy of Midnight
“We can head to the lab as soon as you’re ready,” he promised.
She fell silent, something dubious passing over her face. Finally, she said, “I want to return home.”
Dumbstruck, Silas sat back. “You want to separate? Are you—”
“Join me,” she interjected. “I just want to use my resources, and the Spire has the greatest library in Aethrial. We’d be stupid not to utilise it.”
“We’d be stupid to leave before we get what we need from my mother,” Silas said in a reasoning tone.
She scoffed. “Your mother has proven less than helpful.”
His eyes narrowed. “She’s the only reason we know what we’re up against. We wouldn’t have met the mage today without her.”
Amelia threw her hands up. “Yes, great,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “She ensured our doom was spelled out for us but hasn’t bothered to explain anything that might change that fate!”
“Winslow—”
“Finley,” she shot back, standing in irritation. “I don’t trust your mother, and neither should you. I promised you I would come with you into the Shadowlands to see what she knows, and I did. Now it’s your turn to come with me.”
Silas exhaled sharply. “Give me a week,” he asked, meeting her stern stare, “and if we’re still empty-handed by then…we go to Ivory City.” Amelia looked ready to argue further, so he tried again. “We need to be smart, careful. We can’t go rushing around blind, or we’ll seal our fate. We need to take our time, or we risk missing something important. There’s information for us here, I can feel it.”
Her eyes, usually sharp with academic calculation, held something else as she breathed unsteadily in the soft firelight. It was raw, afraid. He was so unused to seeing her this way, it fractured something unsettling in his chest. She slowly sat, not meeting his eyes.
The fire crackled, casting shadows across her sombre expression.
“Fine,” Amelia relented, “but we can’t miss the conference in the Spire on the eighteenth. Our funding requires a presentation on our expedition, regardless of it being short-lived.”
Silas nodded, continuing to watch her as silence fell again. He felt empty, wrung out. There was little within, no sharpness to his feelings or expression. None of his usual dry wit or easy outpouring of false arrogance. For the first time, he felt responsible for someone other than himself. It was an overwhelming notion. Especially when that someone washer.
He knew if they failed, ifhefailed, they wouldn’t just lose their freedom. They wouldn’t just be whisked together at midnight.
They would be lost to the Midnight Realm, as those before them had. The vision of the shadowy figures was imprinted menacingly in his mind.
Silas leaned back into the chair, tearing his gaze from her to glance at the clock. As always, midnight approached with a slow, assured steadiness.
He couldn’t fail.
He wouldn’t.
The twelfth hour ticked closer as the fire burned lower in the grate. The strength of the wind grew steadily, rattling the shutters and whistling through any gap it could find.
Amelia had fallen asleep in her chair over an hour ago. Her head tilted towards her shoulder, hair spilling across her cheek, looking warm and serene in her slumber. Merely a farce that sleep provided her.
Before succumbing to her weariness, they’d sat in tense silence, skimming through books Silas had brought from the estate’s library along with a tray of food.
He’d selected books he’d found earlier as a starting point, but he closed a third useless one with a resigned sigh, throwing it aside.
They had agreed on a test for tonight’s midnight, Amelia suggesting a proximity trial.
The question posed;would the midnight pull occur with a physical connection?
Silas let her sleep, hoping she found peace in her dreams before he would rouse her for midnight.
He quietly set the books into a pile on the low table before wandering to the fire. It had died down, so he placed some logs into the hearth, watching sparks plume and swirl.
Amelia groaned softly, Silas glancing over his shoulder.
Her face pinched, head turning so that dark hair fell away from her rosy cheek. Moments ago, she had looked peaceful. Now, she exhaled roughly and twitched, looking anything but.
