FOURTEEN
Amelia walked ahead, their trek to the Finley estate accompanied by a heavy silence. He had planned for a return to the lab but didn’t redirect Amelia as he followed the stiff set of her shoulders. Her resolute footfalls, boots crunching on the icy stones, held no room for argument.
She said nothing when greeted by the staff, or as they ascended the spiral staircase to the upper floors.
Reaching their rooms, Amelia pushed open her doors.
Silas stood in the hallway, studying her to interpret her mood or needs. Amelia gave the answer.
She faced him at the threshold, expression dull and quiet, even as a pain behind her eyes screamed loudly. Her dark eyes stuttered before looking away, the doors shutting in his face.
He stared at the closed doors before walking away. A debrief might have been useful. He was still piecing together what he had seen, but if Amelia wasn’t ready to discuss it, he wouldn’t push the matter.
Silas spent the rest of the day rifling through the study in the western wing.
He had entered apprehensively, not having stepped into the room since his father died.
The study was soaked with memory, the walls having absorbed the long days spent with his father, bonding over their shared intellectual pursuits.
With the ghost of his father haunting his every move, Silas rifled through years of research and journals, seeking any mention on pair bonding.
Hours later, Silas sat in a leather chair, spent, and frustrated, books and parchment strewn haphazardly across the heavy wooden desk.
An ache lay on his chest, like a heavy weight had been dropped there.
He rubbed absently at the spot like he could wipe it away, trying to ignore the sensation as he pressed on with his search.
He found nothing.
Defeated, he headed down to the kitchens. When he inquired, the staff informed him Amelia had not requested food all day. Silas prepared a tray for the staff to deliver, adding a small note that he was ready to speak when she was.
Hours passed, the sun making its descent and Amelia still hadn’t sought him out. Acting upon his thinning patience, he knocked at her door. When she didn’t answer, he knocked again, loudly, and purposefully.
A door sprang open, Amelia there with one hand on the door, the other hanging limply by her side. Face pale, Amelia stood with a removed expression that set him on edge.
“Can I come in?”
She shrugged, standing aside. “It’s your home, isn’t it?”
Silas sighed but didn’t enter. “As long as you’re staying, this is your space. If you don’t want me to come in, or you aren’t ready to talk, I’ll leave.”
Amelia met his eyes, saw that he was earnest, before gesturing for him to enter.
He brushed past, her arms folding tightly across her chest like a shield.
The fire crackled low in the hearth, the dim light sending shadows dancing across the walls. The wind outside had picked up since the sun had set, whistling through the windows.
She followed him to the couches, taking seats opposite each other. Silence fell, long and thick.
His eyes lifted, meeting her lost gaze. Sitting before Amelia again, the visions clung to his psyche, raw and sharp.
Shadowed faces darted across his vision.
The final wails of the pair bonded souls, their desperation echoing as the Midnight Realm claimed them.
Silas wondered at his own fate, their fate, and shivered.
A fate neither had even known was a possibility.
Her gaze lowered to her knees, and as he watched her fidget, Silas realised that the tugging ache on his chest was muted, easing in her presence.
The bond was taking its toll, making it physically hurt to be away from her.
The silence between them felt like a living thing, suffocating the air, but Silas struggled to find words.
Amelia was the first to break it.
“So,” she said dully, “we fail to break the bond, or put an end to the magic disturbances and we just…disappear?”
Silas exhaled slowly, gaze wandering to the hearth. He hated her tone, the words. A resignation he was trying to stave off himself.
“We don’t know that will happen, it’s not—”
“You saw the same visions I did, right?” she asked bitterly.
“Every pair before us failed. The magic continues to destabilise as the years pass. The Rift grows…quicker now than it’s ever grown before.
They were all consumed when they couldn’t right it.
” Her voice weakened as she spoke, until the final words were but a whisper.
“Not one of them have come back that we know of.”
“Then we don’t fail.”
Amelia’s laugh was humourless. “That simple, huh?”
She pushed up from her seat, stalking restlessly before the fire.
“We don’t even know what’s causing the instability, or how to repair it.
We don’t know why the bond matters, what the blades’ true purpose is, or how we approach it differently than those before us.
And apparently the Midnight Realm is real and wants to swallow us whole!
” Silas watched as she cut herself off, placing her hand across her mouth, eyes scrunching shut.
She sighed roughly, finally looking to him.
“This was all some terrible accident, Finley…how did we end up here?”
His jaw tightened, panic pulsing in his chest. He reached up to rub there, only to realise that it was not his emotion.
His eyes shot up. Amelia’s brows were pinched, eyes darting around, chest moving with rapid breaths.
Her emotions were speaking to him louder, the bond strengthening.
Silas’ hand tightened, resisting the urge to move for her.
“Winslow, sit down. Let’s use our rational brains for a minute and think this through. ”
A look passed over her face, and he thought she might yell. But the tension left her body, and she slowly sank back into her seat. She looked to him expectantly, like he might hold the answers. Silas took in a deep breath when the feeling in his chest finally eased.
“You don’t think we’re doomed?” she asked, voice small.
“I think we need to be realistic about what we’re up against,” Silas said placatingly.
His own heart thundered at the impossible task laid at their feet, but he would keep his fear to himself if it meant Amelia might draw some strength from him.
“We do what we do best—we research, test and work towards the outcome we want.”
A spark re-entered her eyes and she bit softly at her lip, considering. “Your mother must have some more research we could use.”
“I think so, too. There should be journals and texts, but I’ve yet to find them. I’ll get her to come around.”
“We need to keep testing the blades,” Amelia continued, strength and purpose returning to her voice as she sat forwards. “The more we know about their magical properties, the more we might understand what we need to do.”
“We can head to the lab as soon as you’re ready,” he promised.
She fell silent, something dubious passing over her face. Finally, she said, “I want to return home.”
Dumbstruck, Silas sat back. “You want to separate? Are you—”
“Join me,” she interjected. “I just want to use my resources, and the Spire has the greatest library in Aethrial. We’d be stupid not to utilise it.”
“We’d be stupid to leave before we get what we need from my mother,” Silas said in a reasoning tone.
She scoffed. “Your mother has proven less than helpful.”
His eyes narrowed. “She’s the only reason we know what we’re up against. We wouldn’t have met the mage today without her.”
Amelia threw her hands up. “Yes, great,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “She ensured our doom was spelled out for us but hasn’t bothered to explain anything that might change that fate!”
“Winslow—”
“Finley,” she shot back, standing in irritation. “I don’t trust your mother, and neither should you. I promised you I would come with you into the Shadowlands to see what she knows, and I did. Now it’s your turn to come with me.”
Silas exhaled sharply. “Give me a week,” he asked, meeting her stern stare, “and if we’re still empty-handed by then…
we go to Ivory City.” Amelia looked ready to argue further, so he tried again.
“We need to be smart, careful. We can’t go rushing around blind, or we’ll seal our fate.
We need to take our time, or we risk missing something important.
There’s information for us here, I can feel it. ”
Her eyes, usually sharp with academic calculation, held something else as she breathed unsteadily in the soft firelight. It was raw, afraid. He was so unused to seeing her this way, it fractured something unsettling in his chest. She slowly sat, not meeting his eyes.
The fire crackled, casting shadows across her sombre expression.
“Fine,” Amelia relented, “but we can’t miss the conference in the Spire on the eighteenth. Our funding requires a presentation on our expedition, regardless of it being short-lived.”
Silas nodded, continuing to watch her as silence fell again.
He felt empty, wrung out. There was little within, no sharpness to his feelings or expression.
None of his usual dry wit or easy outpouring of false arrogance.
For the first time, he felt responsible for someone other than himself.
It was an overwhelming notion. Especially when that someone was her .
He knew if they failed, if he failed, they wouldn’t just lose their freedom. They wouldn’t just be whisked together at midnight.
They would be lost to the Midnight Realm, as those before them had. The vision of the shadowy figures was imprinted menacingly in his mind.
Silas leaned back into the chair, tearing his gaze from her to glance at the clock. As always, midnight approached with a slow, assured steadiness.
He couldn’t fail.
He wouldn’t.
The twelfth hour ticked closer as the fire burned lower in the grate. The strength of the wind grew steadily, rattling the shutters and whistling through any gap it could find.
Amelia had fallen asleep in her chair over an hour ago. Her head tilted towards her shoulder, hair spilling across her cheek, looking warm and serene in her slumber. Merely a farce that sleep provided her.
Before succumbing to her weariness, they’d sat in tense silence, skimming through books Silas had brought from the estate’s library along with a tray of food.
He’d selected books he’d found earlier as a starting point, but he closed a third useless one with a resigned sigh, throwing it aside.
They had agreed on a test for tonight’s midnight, Amelia suggesting a proximity trial.
The question posed; would the midnight pull occur with a physical connection?
Silas let her sleep, hoping she found peace in her dreams before he would rouse her for midnight.
He quietly set the books into a pile on the low table before wandering to the fire. It had died down, so he placed some logs into the hearth, watching sparks plume and swirl.
Amelia groaned softly, Silas glancing over his shoulder.
Her face pinched, head turning so that dark hair fell away from her rosy cheek. Moments ago, she had looked peaceful. Now, she exhaled roughly and twitched, looking anything but.
“Where…” she mumbled, hands curling into fists. “I don’t know how to find you…”
Silas shifted closer.
Amelia gasped softly, brows pulling together before relaxing again.
“Silas!” she called out.
He stilled, stunned breathless by the sound of his name.
Never, in all the years they had known one another, had they used anything other than surnames.
It had been a joke he’d started when they were first introduced, but it had written a precedent into stone that neither had been willing to deviate from.
Silas hadn’t known how he yearned to hear her utter those two syllables of his given name, until that moment.
Only…it was in a tone laced with primal fear.
Silas dropped to his knees before Amelia, reaching gently for her arm. “Hey,” he said softly, not wanting to startle her. “Winslow, you’re dreaming…come on, now. Wake up.”
Amelia’s eyes fluttered slowly, breath hitching. Then she looked at him, the dark brown of her eyes struggling to focus. When she seemed to realise he was there, she gasped, sitting up straight.
Silas shifted back onto his haunches, his hand sliding away, watching her worriedly.
“Are you okay? You were dreaming quite loudly.” He tried for a joking tone.
Amelia’s next breath shook, blinking rapidly. “I was in that place,” she said weakly, eyes darting between his. “You…”
“I, what?”
“I couldn’t find you.” She swallowed, shifting her body slightly to face away from him. He could see her withdrawing, shielding herself. “There were shadows everywhere, trying to get to me, and you were missing—”
“I’m here now.”
She said nothing, staring despondently into the fire. Her head tilted back to peer at the clock. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Mm-hm,” was all he managed in the wake of her dream and her flat tone.
They both stood, Silas moving away awkwardly, uncertain.
Helpless, his eyes drifted back to her, his hand gripping the edge of the fireplace. Amelia shifted her shoulders with a wince, a lance of pain sneaking across Silas’ spine through the bond before it disappeared again. Her expression smoothed out when she caught his stare.
“The chair isn’t so great for sleeping.”
He frowned. The words were casual, though her voice was strained.
They stood quietly for a moment, the only sounds were the crackling fire, the whistling wind, and the soft ticking from the clock above the mantel.
Silas waited, tracking the moving hands of the clock. With seconds to spare, they grasped each other’s forearms.
She finally met his eyes, but all he found was a concerning dullness.
Her skin was soft and warm where he held her, their eyes on each other as the midnight hour approached.
In a startling moment, today turned into tomorrow.
His cut burned briefly, and he hissed. Amelia’s fingers contracted around his arm.
A dragging sensation tugged, and he stumbled forwards a step. Forcibly drawn to one another, their bodies collided. The burning dissipated, the pulling sensation gone.
Over.
Her hand rested against his chest as they breathed. Silas looked down to it, hating how his heart stuttered beneath her fingers at the touch.
He let go, stepping away.
She released a sigh of relief. “That felt easier.”
He nodded before quirking a smile. “You didn’t even fall this time.”
Amelia rolled her eyes, but a spark had returned to them. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
He shrugged, grin widening. “I guess time will tell.”