16. Seraphina
16
SERAPHINA
S ome wounds never close.
They don’t heal with time, don’t fade into forgotten scars. They fester.
And now, standing in Rylan’s study, staring at the last wisps of burned parchment curling into the fire, I know I’ve found one of his wounds.
A fresh one. A dangerous one.
He didn’t want me to see it, didn’t want me to ask, but I did.
Because the more time I spend in the Midnight Den, the more I realize Rylan is not the man he pretends to be.
He hides behind sharp smiles, behind amusement that doesn’t reach his eyes. But I see him.
I see the way his jaw clenched when he read the message. The way his fingers twitched, as if resisting the urge to crush the parchment between them.
Something about it rattled him.
And I want to know why.
I wait until he leaves. Until the tension in the room lingers like the ghost of a battle unfinished.
Then I move.
I search.
Not like a common thief, rifling through his things. I don’t need to.
Rylan isn’t careless. He doesn’t leave secrets lying around.
But a man like him—a man built from shadows and lies—has to keep pieces of himself somewhere.
And I’ve been watching him long enough to know where.
The desk.
It’s carved from blackwood, polished smooth, the edges lined with silver. Expensive. Impenetrable to an outsider.
But I’ve never been just an outsider.
I run my fingers along the edge, searching. Feeling.
Then—there.
A small indentation near the underside. Invisible unless you know exactly where to press.
I push.
A faint click, and the drawer shifts.
Unlocked.
My pulse thrums as I slide it open, revealing a stack of neatly bound documents. Letters. Records. And beneath them, tucked away as if it didn’t matter—a dagger.
Not one of the ones he carries.
This one is different.
Smaller, the blade old, worn from years of use. The handle bears a single engraving, a name too faded to read. But meaning of it—gods, I feel it.
This was his.
A relic of who he used to be.
I place it carefully on the desk and turn to the papers, flipping through them quickly, but not carelessly.
Most of them are coded exchanges, cryptic notes, nothing that tells me what I need to know.
Until I reach the last one.
A single letter, stained with something dark in the corner—blood or ink, I can’t tell.
And the name at the bottom makes my breath catch.
Nhilian.
I skim the words, absorbing them in quick, sharp beats of understanding.
You’re still living under the wrong name.
Still wearing a dead man’s skin.
How long do you think you can keep pretending, boy?
I swallow hard.
A dead man’s skin.
Something cold slithers through me.
Because suddenly, things I’d ignored—small, fractured details—start fitting together.
Rylan doesn’t use his last name.
Ever.
He’s built an empire of secrets, yet his own past is the one thing no one speaks of.
And Lartina—gods, Lartina.
"Ask him about the last woman he protected."
She didn’t just say that to rattle me.
She said it because she knew.
There’s something here.
Something Rylan is keeping buried, something so dangerous it might ruin him if it ever came to light.
I hear footsteps in the hall.
Too late.
I barely have time to shove the letter back into the drawer before the door swings open.
Rylan.
His presence floods the room before he even speaks, his gaze locking onto me like a blade pressed to my throat.
"Find what you were looking for?"
I don’t flinch.
I don’t let my breathing hitch.
But he knows.
Of course he does.
He closes the door behind him, slow, deliberate, like a predator deciding whether to strike.
I exhale, rolling my shoulders. "You should really change your locks."
He moves before I can blink.
One step, then another—and suddenly he’s in front of me, too close, the warmth of him pressing against my skin like a brand.
"That drawer," he murmurs, voice a thread of silk and steel, "is locked for a reason."
I tilt my head, matching his gaze. "And yet it was so easy to open."
His lips curve, but there’s no amusement there.
Only danger.
"You’re pushing me, little thief."
I lift a brow. "You started it."
Silence.
A heavy, electric silence.
He doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
And suddenly, I feel everything.
The tension coiling between us, thick and suffocating.
The sharp, measured control in the way he hasn’t touched me yet not because he doesn’t want to, but because he won’t allow himself to.
I breathe in slowly. "Who is Nhilian to you?"
His jaw tightens. "Drop it, Seraphina."
I step closer, barely a breath between us now. "What did he mean?" My voice drops, quieter. "A dead man’s skin."
Rylan goes still.
Not just his body—his breath, his presence, his very essence.
Like the air has been sucked out of the room, like something invisible and violent is unraveling inside him.
His hand moves—too fast, too reckless—and suddenly his fingers are gripping my chin, tilting my head.
I should pull away.
I don’t.
"Don’t dig where you don’t belong," he warns, his voice barely above a whisper.
But his fingers stay on me, pressing just enough to make me feel it.
Enough to remind me that this—whatever this is between us—is just as dangerous as the truths I’m trying to uncover.
I lift my chin, unshaken. "Maybe you should stop burying things."
A sharp inhale.
His thumb brushes against my jaw, a fleeting, unwanted touch. Just as quickly, he releases me, steps back, and rebuilds the wall between us.
"Stay out of it," he mutters.
I know I won’t be staying out of anything.