9. Glimpses in Shadow #2
When he’s done with the glasshouse, he grabs his tools and moves on.
I follow, keeping to the shadows just outside where the candles reach, my socked feet silent on the old floors.
This is completely insane, I think. I am literally stalking the guy who has been stalking me.
In the music room, he fuses over the grand piano, tucking a cloth around it like he’s putting a child to bed.
Then he does something to a brass vent in the wall, the same vent that I had always thought was just for show. His fingers twist and adjust something hidden. Something clicks, then whooshes, and I can suddenly feel air moving through the walls.
The climate control system. He’s fixing the air, going room to room and tweaking those little brass vents to stop the storm’s dampness from warping all the old wood and paper.
He spends longer in the library, moving shelf to shelf like a man on a mission.
I assume he’s checking for leaks, but no — he’s putting away all the stuff I left out during my research spiral.
He’s got some system I can’t quite decode, sliding each book back into place with those long fingers, nudging and adjusting until everything lines up exactly right.
I can’t stop staring from the doorway. The way he touches each book, like he knows exactly where it belongs.
His fingers trail over the spines with this gentleness that does something weird to my throat.
It doesn’t look like someone doing chores.
It looks like someone taking care of something they love.
Lightning cracks the sky again, turning the library bright white for a split second. He goes rigid, caught. Then his head swivels toward me, slow and careful, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal.
Our eyes meet. Actually meet, for the first time.
His eyes are dark, like someone who’s spent most of their life in shadows.
I can’t tell if he’s pissed off or just startled in the split second before the lightning fades and we’re back in the dark.
But that look — it pins me right where I’m standing.
Neither of us moves, neither of us says a word, while thunder crashes so hard I can feel it vibrating up through my socks.
Lightning flashes again, and he’s gone — like an actual magician’s trick. I scan the room and find him hunched over my desk with his back to me, shoulders drawn up under his shirt, while his hands work at something I can’t see from here.
Then he straightens and half-turns, not quite looking at me but definitely seeing me there.
His chin dips just slightly, a nod that says “I know you’re watching.
” Lightning flashes again, and he’s gone, slipping between bookshelves and into one of the many hidden passages, vanishing before I can get a word out.
I wait, counting one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, then tiptoe over to the desk.
There, sitting dead centre, is an envelope.
He’s written my name on it, not “Miss Hale” or anything formal, just “Elara,” in the same handwriting I recognize from the watchtower journals.
The ink’s still wet enough to catch the light when I tilt it.
My hands are actually trembling as I pick it up. The paper is thick and textured, the kind you don’t find at a regular stationery shop. I break the seal — actual wax, pressed with that same eye symbol from the skeleton key — and inside there’s just a single card.
The handwriting is slanted and precise, with loops that curl like question marks. Whoever wrote this learned penmanship back when it actually meant something, probably from some stern-faced teacher with a ruler and zero patience for sloppy letters:
Miss Hale,
If it pleases you, I request the honour of your company in the library at midnight. There are matters of mutual concern which would benefit from direct discussion.
I remain your humble servant,
S. Merrick
No “sorry for the whole watching-you-sleep thing” or “hey, about the creeping.” Just a formal little invitation like we’re about to sit down for tea and crumpets.
I almost laugh at how absurdly proper it is — but then something catches in my throat.
This man has been hiding in walls and shadows for God knows how long.
This note is probably the only way he knows how to reach out.
I run my finger over his signature, feeling where the pen pressed into the paper. S. Merrick. Finally. A real name for the shadow, the one who left footprints in the mud, the one who’s apparently been playing silent bodyguard since the day I arrived.
The name “S. Merrick” falls from my lips into the silence, strange yet familiar, like a word I’ve known but never spoken. I fold the note carefully, pressing it between my palms. “Until midnight, then.”
I slip the note into my pocket and check my watch.
Four hours till midnight. Four hours to get ready for what is objectively the strangest blind date in human history, except the person I’m meeting has been watching me sleep, and somehow that doesn’t terrify me the way it absolutely should.
It feels more like meeting a stranger who’s already an old friend.
I catch myself fiddling with my hair in the bedroom mirror.
Again. The dark dress I dug out from the back of my closet is suddenly feeling like way too much, like I’ve completely lost perspective on what this actually is.
I’ve already changed three times, which is frankly embarrassing, and I’m tired.
My hair’s loose around my shoulders instead of in its usual braid.
I look different. Nervous. Like I’m waiting for prom and not about to confront the man who has been physically living inside my walls.
This is not drinks with a Tinder match. This is a face-to-face with my personal stalker, who almost certainly knows which brand of tampons I buy.
I glare at my own reflection. “Seriously, Elara. Get a grip,” I mutter, grabbing my journal off the nightstand.
Nearly thirty pages of observations, sketches of hidden passages, and questions scrawled in every margin.
Focus on that. Not on the stupid butterflies that fire up every time I think about him.
Tonight is about figuring out why I own a house full of secret passages and who exactly wants to kill me for it.
I grab my little brass lantern, paranoid, maybe, but I’ve been caught in enough blackouts to not trust candles alone, and head down the hall toward the library.
The grandfather clock starts striking midnight just as I reach the double doors, the sound bouncing off the walls like the house is sitting up to pay attention.
I pause, fingers tapping restlessly against the handle. Three deep breaths, then I push the door open.
The library looks completely different. Candles everywhere, dozens of them, lighting up the whole room.
He’s placed them in these exact spots that make the woodwork glow while leaving warm little pools of light over the armchairs and reading nooks.
Not randomly either — each one is exactly where it’s supposed to be, like he measured the gaps between them.
When they catch in the old glass of the windows, it looks like he’s somehow pulled the night sky inside.
And there, standing near the fireplace, is S. Merrick.
The candlelight gives me everything the lightning only teased.
He’s maybe mid-thirties, with that lean, ropy build that comes from actual physical work and not gym memberships.
His face is all angles — cheekbones that could genuinely cut glass, under these watchful, intense eyes that make me feel like I’m being catalogued.
Dark hair grown out on top but trimmed at the sides, not quite hipster, more like someone who cuts it himself and doesn’t lose sleep over what’s fashionable.
The clothes are clean but definitely not this decade: dark trousers, a button-down, sleeves rolled up to show forearms that look like they could split firewood all afternoon without breaking a sweat.
When did this man last eat a proper meal?
He doesn’t move when I walk in, just stands there with his shoulders pulled back like he’s posing for a Victorian portrait.
When our eyes connect, something electric goes through me, one, two, three full seconds, before he deliberately looks away, fixing on an invisible point past my ear.
God, has anyone ever taught this man how to relax?
I wonder, fighting the bizarre urge to reach out and tilt his gaze back to mine.
“Miss Hale,” he says, his voice lower than I expected, with the slight rasp of someone who doesn’t use it often. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”
I move further into the room, setting my lantern on a side table. “I think we’re well past the formality of ‘Miss Hale,’ don’t you? You’ve been living in my house for months.”
Something flickers across his face, discomfort, maybe, or amusement, hard to tell. “Your house,” he repeats, each word careful and measured. “Yes. I suppose that is accurate, in terms of legal ownership.”
I drop into one of the wingback chairs near the fire, the leather creaking under me. “Let’s be honest, I may have the deed, but you’ve been haunting these halls a lot longer than I have.” I nod toward the empty chair across from me. “Sit down? We’ve got a lot to get through.”
He hesitates, then lowers himself into the chair with careful movements, maintaining a precise distance between us. His hands rest on his knees, neither relaxed nor clenched, just waiting.
“You may call me Silas,” he says after a moment, the words sounding almost rehearsed. “If that would make our conversation more comfortable for you.”
“Silas,” I repeat, testing the name. It fits him somehow, old-fashioned but strong. “I’m Elara, though you already know that. Along with pretty much everything else about me, I’m guessing.”