54. Swimming in the Shallows
SWIMMING IN THE SHALLOWS
LEV
F uck. He must have given Silas a concussion. Lev fought gravity to keep Silas upright. He was much heavier when unconscious.
“Si?”
No answer.
Lev shook him gently, but his head listed and lolled on his neck.
“Silas?”
Lev wedged his knee carefully between Silas’s legs and stepped closer to press him against the wall so he wouldn’t fall as Lev lifted his head.
He’d never seen him so peaceful, not even while he slept—lips parted softly, the muscles in his face relaxed, ordinarily so tight against his sharp cheekbones.
His eyes were closed, but not completely.
Lev cradled Silas’s head and neck in the crook of one arm like he was a newborn, and when his head lulled back, his mouth opened, and his eyelids lifted slightly.
Was he waking up?
But he wasn’t moving, and when Lev used one hand to part Silas’s eyelids, something about his eyes made Lev feel like he was looking into a mirror, like the only life he saw was his reflection staring back.
No. That wasn’t right. Silas was stunned. That’s why his body dangled limply. But Silas reminded him of a crow that had crashed into the window and snapped its neck, and his chest was too still.
Guarding Silas’s neck, Lev eased them both down to the floor.
“Father!” Lev screamed until his voice cracked.
Where was he? He couldn’t be in his room. He would have heard too much not to check on them.
Lev held Silas’s head in his lap and called for his father by any and all names, even Dad, because Lev was a boy who needed his father after he’d hurt the boy he loved. He even tried calling for Lucy, a pet name Wendell had used.
Wendell. He’d hurt Wendell’s son. Lev called for Wendell too and his mum and Luna.
Why couldn’t anyone hear him?
Lev sobbed and screamed Silas’s name. How cruel that he’d wanted to scream at Silas earlier, and now he’d do anything to whisper to him one more time and know Silas could hear him.
But that could still happen. Silas wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.
“No, Si. No,” Lev sobbed, pulling Silas closer so he could hold him. “Please don’t go.”
Lev knew how fragile Silas was. He should have been more careful. He shouldn’t have tried to stop him.
If he hadn’t been so afraid to disappoint Father, if he’d sacrificed more, and tried to love Silas more, opened a window when he felt like he was suffocating instead of trying to leave, maybe none of this would have ever happened, and Silas would still be here.
“Leviathan? ”
The door pushed open, but Lev’s legs were blocking it. Why bother? Father couldn’t fix this.
Lev knew the truth. Silas was dead, and while he was still warm, he’d been dead far too long for there to be any hope of reviving him.
“Leviathan, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Silas. He’s dead. I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.”
Lev sobbed anew and rocked Silas gently in his lap until he couldn’t see Silas’s face through his tears. But that was probably for the best. He didn’t want to remember Silas like this. He didn’t want to remember any of this.
“Let me in, Lev,” Father said so gently. He never called him Lev.
But the gentle way Lucian had called him Lev wasn’t real. It was a diversion. Lucian slammed into the door with a shocking smash that sent Lev’s broken heart racing into a gallop.
Could he give Silas his extra heartbeats? Why was he allowed so many when Silas had none? Why couldn’t he share them?
The door swung wider and crashed against Lev’s leg. He didn’t care about the pain, but he didn’t want any more of Silas’s bones to break like he suspected his neck had, so he scooted back and dragged Silas out of the way.
Father swept in, and swung his gaze down to Lev holding Silas to his chest like a porcelain doll with a chipped face, then sucked in a sharp breath.
“What happened?” Father asked quietly.
He wasn’t cross. He was calm, but it was a mask. Lev knew what his father looked like when he knew he would lose a person he loved. He’d witnessed it twice.
Father was scared. Lev was too, because what was more terrifying and primitively dread-inspiring than the black nothingness of death, knowing that there was no afterlife, that he’d never see Mum, or Wendell, or Silas ever again ?
They were just gone.
His mum would never stroke his hair and sing to him until he fell asleep. Wendell would never tell him another story, or write a single word, or say, I love you again, and Silas…
Fuck.
Silas would never slip through the secret door, and come to Lev for comfort, and ask Lev to fight his monsters for him, or look at him like he wanted to crawl inside Lev’s marrow and live there forever.
Lev would never draw his sigil on Silas’s skin to protect him.
Only now, only you had died with Silas.
There was only then , when Silas had been alive, and now only Lev.
Only Lev.
Only Lev.
“We were fighting,” Lev sobbed, too devastated to be embarrassed of crying like a child in front of him. “I didn’t want him to t-t-tell you about us. I didn’t want to disappoint you. I tried to stop him. I didn’t want to hurt him. He’s just so easily broken.”
“It’s alright, son. Let me have a look at him. It’s probably just a wee bump on his head and tomorrow he’ll be whinging at breakfast.”
“He won’t. His neck is too fragile. It cracked like a branch—no, like a twig, and he can’t hold his head up.”
Lev dissolved into tears again. He couldn’t breathe. Was that how Silas had felt during that nanosecond of shutting down synapses?
Or had he been relieved? He’d been dancing at the edge of the cliff between life and death for so long, and he’d finally leapt.
“Leviathan, you need to let him go so I can have a look at him. Now.”
“How?”
How could he let Silas go? He had to make sure Silas knew he was loved, had always been loved, tell him how sorry he was and…
What if Lev lost him and never found him again? What if Silas slipped beneath the surface of the ocean, hollow eyes staring unseeingly at Lev as he slowly sank into the depths of existence?
No. Lev wouldn’t let him go. He’d carry Silas in his arms until they were nothing more than shadows and stars.
“I have an idea. Why don’t you hold his head in your lap while I look at him? I’m sure Silas would prefer it. Just try to breathe so you can be strong for him.”
Lev could do that. He loosened his hold and ushered Silas out of his arms and onto the pillow of his lap.
“Well done,” Lucian said as if they were in the art studio, and Lev had finally earned his approval.
Lucian pressed his fingers to Silas’s neck, searching for the pulse Lev already knew had fled. When he couldn’t find it, his shoulders slumped, but he put on a brave face, which was very kind of him. Fatherly even.
“Let’s get him on his back. There’s still a chance. You can do that for him, right?”
Lev nodded and let Father take him. He’d never felt more powerless and alone than when he let Silas go.
Silas wasn’t his to hold anymore.
Father was careful, but gravity was violent. Silas’s head rolled on his broken neck, face drifting toward Lev, to stare with pale blue irises eclipsed by dilated pupils.
Lev climbed to his feet and backed away, watching outside of his body as Father bent over Silas and breathed air into his lungs, and pushed on his chest, trying to pump blood from the heart Lev broke, growing more panicked as the last connection he had to Wendell vanished, and he arrived at the same conclusion Lev already had.
Silas was dead .
The balcony door was open. Lev wasn’t sure if he’d opened it or Silas’s soul had left through it.
Wind whispered into the room, swirling and swishing the white curtains like a current coaxing waves into churning.
The ocean called his name on a crashing wave, summoning him away from the body Silas no longer lived in.
Wind snatched the tears from his cheeks as he followed Silas’s soul out onto the balcony. He gripped the thick stone parapet and hoisted himself onto it, then climbed to full height, and stood at the precipice of death.
The tide had retreated. Only jagged, craggy rocks would catch him, but the ocean promised to return for him, and he saw Silas swimming in the shallows. Lev didn’t hesitate. He listened. With Silas’s name on his lips, Lev took his last breath, and leapt off the ledge.
“Leviathan, no!”
Father caught Lev around the middle. His horizon tilted sideways.
Father carted him kicking and screaming away from the balcony and tackled him to the ground.
The only man stronger than Lev at Lichenmoor was his father, but Lev had grief on his side, and he fought to free himself. He had to get to Silas.
“Fetch the horse’s kit!” Father roared.
The kit? What for? Had Silas survived?
“Let me go! Silas needs me.”
“Silas needs you inside ,” Father shouted, then lowered his voice. “He was so upset when he woke up without you. Come and I’ll show you.”
Lev sniffed and nodded. Father was right. Poor Silas must be furious with him. Lev would comfort him.
“He’ll be so pleased.” Lucian released Lev and lifted him from the floor. “Take care and enter slowly so you don’t frighten him.”
Lucian steered him into the room. The door clicked shut behind him, locking out the wind .
“So Silas isn’t cold,” Father explained.
“Of course.”
Lev scanned the floor for Silas and found him in the center of the bed on his back, face turned toward the balcony, eyes closed like he’d fallen asleep while waiting for him.
A crown of silken hair as shiny as crow feathers spilled out on the pillow cradling his head. Father had covered him with the fluffy cloud of Lev’s duvet.
“The floor wasn’t very comfortable, so I carried him to bed and tucked him in.”
“Was he upset?”
Father pressed his lips together and shook his head. “He knows it was an accident.”
“Thank you.” Lev crossed to Silas’s side.
“He’s still not quite himself.”
“Si? It’s okay. I’m here,” Lev whispered and lifted Silas’s hand and pressed it against his cheek. “He’s still so cold.”
“He’ll warm up under the covers soon.”
Lev would help him. He’d share his body heat. He peeled the covers back.
“Christ. Leviathan, don’t wake him!” Father yanked Lev back from the bed. “Wait until the doctor examines him.”
No. Lev shook him off and ripped the duvet back. Silas didn’t flinch, and he wasn’t breathing, and his eyes were as empty as when Lev had last seen them.
Losing Silas all over again eviscerated him. Lev collapsed over Silas’s chest and sobbed into his shirt.
“No. Silas, please. I’m so sorry.”
Lev took Silas’s hand and curled his limp arm over Lev’s back. Silas couldn’t be dead; he was comforting Lev, stroking his back, saying he forgave him, and Lev would promise to love Silas the way he needed him to.
Then they’d leave Lichenmoor, and Lev wouldn’t feel claustrophobic anymore, and Silas wouldn’t be sad anymore.
The floorboards creaked. Lev lifted his head. Father nodded at someone in the doorway. Silas’s arm rolled off Lev’s back and landed on the bed sickeningly.
“Luna, the box,” Father snapped.
What box? Lev couldn’t let them take Silas and put him in a box all by himself. Silas would be lonely. He needed Lev and Lev needed him.
Silas couldn’t leave him.
“Oh love, please don’t cry.” Luna stroked Lev’s back the way he wished Silas could have.
“I can’t lose him. I can’t live. I can’t—” He choked on a sob.
Lev cried and cried into Silas’s neck until he couldn’t breathe. How could he breathe without Silas? How could he breathe when Silas couldn’t?
A sharp pain lanced his thigh. He clutched Silas tighter. His pulse slowed, and his vision blurred, and he didn’t care about breathing anymore.
The bed swayed over gentle waves and carried Lev and Silas out to sea. Lev wasn’t afraid.
The tide would return them.