Chapter 22
XXII
SILAS
Itake the steps two at a time.
Every step sounds louder than it should, the old stone echoing under my boots, but I don’t care.
I shouldn’t be in the Girls’ Dormitory, but that’s the least of my worries.
Half the school’s already talking about how my engagement party went up in smoke, about how the Peregrine-Ashfords “don’t even own their estate anymore. ”
The one thing that kept Eden under my thumb—the physical part of our bond, as the Spirit ensured the metaphysical part was taken care of—no longer exists.
Money is the only thing that ever mattered.
That’s what she wanted.
That’s what her mother wanted.
That’s what kept her docile, what kept her coming back.
What kept her covering the fucking bruises whenever I lost my temper.
Now, I have no idea where the fuck she is.
After she tossed the ring—one of the last things of value I had—into the dirty London streets and her father whisked her away, I lost track of her.
That is, until some whispers told me her mother had sent her back to Augustine to sequester her away from the scandal.
Just like Viscountess Evelyn Lockhart to try and save face.
But her need to keep her family name free from stain has given me an opportunity to get Eden back. I need her back. Money or no money. I need her the same way I need air, I need her like the blood my heart pumps through my veins.
So I drove all the way here to find her.
The door to her dorm is cracked open. Just enough. Just enough to test me. I push it all the way with my knuckles, hoping to find her there—crying, sleeping, something.
Instead, there’s only Anastazya.
She sits up on the bed quickly, her eyes wide. She blinks quickly, but she doesn’t speak. She knows not to speak first in my presence. My title might be empty, but it’s a title nonetheless.
I close the door behind me, letting the click echo like a coffin lid.
“Where is she?” I ask.
Anastazya rises from her bed—she’s dressed in a thin nightgown—crossing the space between until she’s close enough for me to smell the roseberry scent of her long blond hair that she has braided into two plaits down her back.
“Silas, I’ve been meaning to talk—”
I cut her off. “Where. Is. She?”
Anastazya’s eyes dart to the rosary on her desk. “She just left and didn’t tell me where she was going, but—” She takes a deep shuddering breath. “Don’t you see you don’t need her anymore?”
The whole world holds its breath for a second.
I take a step forward, and she shrinks into herself a bit. Everything in me is white-hot and shaking. Rage pressed into my bones like I’ve been hollowed out and filled with fire.
“What?”
She has the nerve to smile, completely clueless.
“From what the tabloids say, you were marrying Eden for money, right? Well, now that she’s called off the engagement—you don’t need her anymore.” Anastazya grins. “We can finally be together.” She smooths down a flyaway. “My family has enough money for both of us.”
I close the last bit of distance between us.
I hold the sides of Anastazya’s head gently, and watch as her smile grows impossibly wide, she grips my wrists. “You’ve done so much for me, Ana,” I whisper.
She nods fervently, then lowers her voice. “At first I didn’t think it was possible for us to be together after everything that was happening.” Her blue eyes are glistening with what I recognize now to be admiration, maybe even obsession.
“It is possible, Ana,” I whisper back. “You did so much for me.” I give her a slow smile. “You pushed Vivienne out of that window for me.” She nods, caressing my hands. “You’ve kept an eye on Eden, and now—I’m single.”
There’s a grin on her face that could light up the whole world.
“But not for long,” I bring her forehead to mine. “Thank you, Anastazya. I’ll bring tulips to your funeral.”
She barely has time to register what I’m saying before I twist her head with such force it breaks her neck. Anastazya falls to my feet, limp and dead.
“You’ve outlived your usefulness,” I say looking at her glazed over eyes, her open mouth. “And you’re fucking stupid to think I’d ever dirty my name and blood with the likes of you?”
Then, I turn on my heel and walk out the door.
You need to find her.
The Spirit’s voice assaults me, as if I don’t already know.
The bond will kill her if you do not find her soon.
My fingers twitch.
The ritual that I undertook to bind Eden and I for an eternity requires two things—proximity and belief. Now, I have neither of those things. At least, when she believed I was her only key to salvation I had her firmly in my grip, even when we aren’t always around each other. But now?
Now, Lucian’s ruined everything.
And if I don’t find Eden soon, the blood sickness from the ritual will start to damage her in irreversible ways. I want her more than I want her money—only marginally—but I also don’t want her to lose her looks.
I walk out of the Girls’ Dormitory unhurriedly.
The only person who might find Anastazya is Eden if she ever makes it back here—or a nosy neighbor when her body starts to stink. Either one works for me, it’s not as if they can hold me accountable. I’ve already lost all that I can possibly lose.
That’s when I see her.
Eden.
Slipping across the courtyard, bags in tow, like she’s hoping no one sees her.
But I do, and the moment I recognize her, my entire world goes red. My fists clench so hard my nails dig into my palms, but I barely feel it over the rush of blood pounding in my ears. She’s taking a curious path, and I know exactly where it leads.
His cottage.
So she’s been shacking up with him?
I won’t let her slip through my fingers again like that night in London. It was out of respect for her father that I didn’t follow her to her house and drag her out of it.
But she’s mistaken if she thinks Lucian will protect her.
I move before I think. Boots hitting gravel, breath sharp through my nose, heart hammering against my ribs. The very girl that I sacrificed it all for, that I performed ritual after ritual for just to keep her, wants to reject me.
I’ll never allow it.
“Eden.”
She freezes, but she doesn’t turn right away. Her fingers are twitching at the sound of my voice. It’s good to know that she still fears me the way she should—the way a wife should. I caught her between two statues that cast long shadows over us.
She finally turns, slow and cold and perfect. Like she hasn’t been ducking me for days. Like she didn’t destroy me with a single flick of her fingers when she tore the ring off and dropped it like it was filth.
“What do you want?” she says.
Her voice is calm, even though she looks anything but.
She looks like a ghost of the girl I knew. Her caramel skin is dull, her lips pale and cracked. There’s a sheen of sweat on her temple despite the cold, and she moves like every step costs her something—like her body’s running on fumes and rage alone.
This is what it looks like when you break the ritual.
Oh, I already know.
That invisible thread that once bound her to me is frayed and flickering like dying candlelight. Whatever protection it offered, whatever balance it held, it’s gone now.
And without it… she’s unraveling.
I notice it all.
The breaths that come too fast and too shallow.
The circles under her eyes like bruised shadows.
The tightness in her jaw when she forces herself to straighten her spin.
She’s sick—and I’m almost certain she doesn’t know why. Just the thought of Lucian trying to nurse her back to health makes my whole body shake. But no amount of tea and medication can help her.
I hate that she still looks beautiful, like a marble-carved saint cracking from the inside out. The kind you bleed for just to feel worthy. The kind you destroy altars for.
And I would have.
Because if the ritual is broken—
Then so am I.
It makes me want to scream.
I stalk toward her.
Controlled rage in every step.
Every muscle in my body is burning with it.
“What do I want?” I repeat, laughing once bitterly. “I want to know where the hell you’ve been hiding.”
She doesn’t flinch. That makes it worse.
I step closer.
“I want to know how you sleep at night after throwing me to the wolves. After pretending I never mattered. After using me like a stepping stone and then stomping me into the ground the second you got a better story to tell.”
“Don’t twist this—”
“Don’t?” I snap. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t twist, Eden. You twisted it the second you let them shame me. The second you let Lucian get up on that stage and call me a charity case. You didn’t even try to save face.”
Her lips part, but nothing comes out.
That’s when it hit me.
“You planned this with him, didn’t you?” I look down at the bags in her hands. “You knew all along and this was your plan to get rid of me.”
I root my fingers through my hair, recognition dawning on me like a bullet shot from a sniper’s rifle. “You knew.”
She shakes her head. “Silas, I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”
“Then why are you holed up in his cottage?!” I shout. “You’ve been there ever since your mother sent you back here.”
She looks at me like I’m unhinged.
Good.
“I gave you everything I had,” I hiss. “Everything. And the second it got messy, you threw me away like trash. You watched me burn, and you walked away.”
Silence.
The kind that dares me to move.
Dares me to strike something.
She doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t defend herself.
And that somehow makes it worse.
“There’s one thing you forgot, Eden,” I whisper to her, balling my fists. “If I can’t have you, nobody will.”
Then I punch her in the face with all the strength I have.