THIRTEEN
Silas’s laboratory sat in the heart of the city; a building purchased as a means to escape his home. It was half library, half workshop, with the controlled chaos of a scholar who worked relentlessly, while still valuing precision.
The walls were lined with towering bookshelves, the dark oak groaning under the weight of leather-bound tomes, aged scrolls and academic journals that were filled Silas’ meticulous handwriting.
Loose papers were stuffed between the pages and stacked into untidy piles, other large books glowed with arcane symbols, an indication that it was locked to anyone but him.
His worktable dominated the middle of the room, its surface a battlefield of open books, empty vials, and partially dismantled magical items. Tuned instruments sat underneath glass spheres, giving off a faint humming that set the room abuzz with a constant low-level noise.
Broken Waystone chips sat around from a past research project, their faded runes occasionally catching the light of his golden arcane lamps.
Amelia took it in with a quiet, stunned expression.
She paused beside a section of his worktable, scanning across a series of parchment covered in the ancient rune sequences from the South Monolith, which Silas had last been working on.
It had become his life’s work to decipher the nature of the Monoliths, how they worked, how the magic could be tamed, stabilised.
She glanced up. “This is…” Amelia trailed off, eyes leaving him to wander around the enormous room again. “I don’t know why, but I thought that you would be a veritable neat freak. Though, after seeing the state of your tent in the Rift…this shouldn’t be surprising.”
Silas leaned against the worktable and focused downwards to the glass vials filled with a copper liquid that gave off a faint spicy scent. He shifted his jaw, working to control the desire to smile.
“Perhaps we can establish that you don’t know me very well at all,” he said, fingers tapping against the tabletop.
When he looked up, Amelia watched him curiously, standing before his large chalkboard that stretched across one wall.
It was home to his detailed notes on magical equilibrium, outlining his theory on a possible connection between the Monolith’s that no scientist had yet figured out.
Certain phrases had been aggressively underlined, while other words were smudged where he had erased entire sections in his frustration, only to rewrite it again.
His research on the Monoliths had been his most challenging venture to date.
Four arcane lamps hung from the ceiling, their crystals resolutely glowing. Though recently, they had been flickering more often, a worrying nod to the weakening magic.
Silas unslung his pack, removing the covered blades. Amelia wandered back over as he carefully unwrapped them, holding his breath.
They lay innocently, the golden blade catching the light, while the dark blade seemed to absorb light.
Amelia shifted closer to observe them, her shoulder nudging his. He found his gaze drifting from the daggers that had changed the course of their lives to glance quietly at her, sure that she had never willingly stood so close to him.
“So small to cause such a large disaster,” she said with an equal measure of lingering fear and awe as she took in the delicate design of the blades.
He lifted a corner of his mouth. “Sounds a bit like you.”
She met his eyes, mischief in her expression. “Well, I am a storm, right?”
His half-smile grew. “Undoubtedly.”
The moment drew on, gazes held. Silas’ hand curled atop the table, curiosity mounting to know what she was thinking. Her eyes dipped to his mouth before darting back to the blades, and he felt it. A swooping sensation across his stomach, one that wasn’t his.
He swallowed, wrenching his eyes away. Experiencing an echo of her feelings felt invasive, yet he was fascinated by the peek behind the curtain of Amelia Winslow, a shield which she kept firmly drawn.
She got to work, not asking for permission or direction. Gathering a series of items, she laid them out along an edge of the worktable for material testing. They would ascertain if the blades reacted differently when cutting through distinctive materials.
Silas labelled each metal, incapable of not shooting quick glances at her as they worked. He wondered if she’d had any snapshots of his feelings.
It was a bizarre notion, that if he had an overwhelming emotion, Amelia might experience a version of it.
Ever the diligent scientist, Silas schemed an experiment for the hypothesis. Asking was an option he had ruled out, fearing her reaction if she had no awareness of the unwilling invasion of her privacy.
“Encumbrance boxes are made from composite metal, right?” She pulled a small box closer, inspecting the sides.
“Mm-hm,” Silas confirmed, pointing to a shelf where the material for the box was stored. “It’s a carbon fibre reinforced resin, runed by a mage for strength, resonance and containment.”
She nodded and moved to it, pulling pieces of the resin out before returning, adding them to the line-up of materials. “We’ll test the blades’ ability to cut it, and we could think of keeping them in a box, see if it dulls or nullifies their magical signature.”
He nodded, watching her set each item in rigidly spaced sequences.
Distracted as she was, now was the moment for his experiment.
Silas pictured the moment he had first seen her.
Visiting the Lux Spire for the first time, he prepared to marvel at the elegance and enormity of the grandest university hosting the most prestigious library in Aethrial.
It had been built up in his head as somewhere he wanted to visit for his entire life, a place boasted by all scholars he had ever met.
While it had been grand and undeniably beautiful, Silas had been underwhelmed.
What had taken him by surprise, was the serious-faced and dark-eyed brunette sitting by a window in the library, straight-backed with one leg crossed demurely over the other.
A book propped in her lap, she read with the steady diligence of one who had been a reader and researcher their entire life.
Her gaze didn’t waver from her text in the time that Silas had toured the library, his attention straying to her an alarming number of occasions.
He couldn’t say, after all these years, what had drawn him in so rapidly.
It might have been that half her dark hair sat in an untidy yet elegant bun upon her head, a series of loose curls spilling around her shoulders, a single tendril brushing her cheekbone.
It could have been how her fingers, delicate and graceful, turned the pages before returning to a curled position on her knee.
Or the way she donned a pair of riding boots with her slacks and red blouse, leaving him to postulate she was not only an indoor, nose-in-her-book scholar.
Whatever it was, Silas felt compelled to stray from the tour, intent to introduce himself, to hear her voice and likely fuel the budding obsession.
Reaching the set of chairs where she sat, her chin finally rose, eyes leaving the book.
They locked gazes for the first time, a breathtaking gut-punch.
Her brown eyes held a depth that made him wish to understand her, despite not knowing her name at the time.
They also held a coldness that stopped him in his tracks, relaying a clear message: she had no interest in engaging.
In fact, he was almost certain if he had attempted to, she might have tried to brain him with the heavy book she held.
Silas looked at her now, recalling the moment and emotions she had unwittingly elicited vividly. It surged with fervour. A deep pang of longing. A sharp, twisting pull in his chest.
He didn’t need to wait long to conclude his assumptions.
Amelia was labelling a runed copper plate when she stiffened, hand tightening around her pen with an audible gasp. Her head whipped to him, blinking with confusion, a blush forming along her cheekbones.
Silas cleared his throat, keeping his expression neutral. He shifted away, busying himself with locating his protective gloves before touching the blades.
“What did you just do?” Amelia asked accusingly from behind him.
He fitted his hand into a glove and turned, flexing his fingers into the fit. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t play dumb, Finley. You just did something. Whatever I just felt…wasn’t mine .”
“How do you know that?” he asked with a raised brow.
Amelia slapped her pen down. “Finley.”
Silas exhaled through his nose. “It was a test,” he admitted, voice neutral.
Amelia’s jaw clenched. “A test? Without saying anything?”
“I wanted to see if the bond could be manipulated,” Silas said with a casual shrug. “If a strong emotion could be used as a tether through the bond.”
Her expression darkened as she understood. “So, what , exactly? You thought of something intense to see if I would feel it?”
Silas hesitated. “Something like that.”
She folded her arms, irritation sharpening. “And you weren’t going to mention that before playing with my emotions?”
Sighing, he glanced away, rubbing at his chest. He could feel her rising frustration, a pressure against his ribcage. “I didn’t think it was important, I didn’t know it would work.”
Her foot tapped with annoyance. “Not important? Why did you even…” Amelia’s eyes sharpened. “Have you been feeling things from me ?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I pondered whether some things over the past few days had been influenced by the bond.”
Her blush deepened. Another pressure settled on his chest, this time embarrassment. Silas rubbed his sternum absently like he could brush the sensation away.
“I suppose you’re sure now,” Amelia bit out. “Well do explain your methodology. What were you thinking to send that feeling to me?”
A beat of silence.
Her brows lifted. “Finley?”
He searched for a reasonable lie, for a different memory to explain it. He came up short.