THIRTY-ONE
They landed unsteadily, arms still wrapped around each other, on the border of East Town. Their narrow escape lingered between them as they parted, looking at each other, before silently heading into the small town.
Their walk back to Brinkley’s felt suffocated by a silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
Silas hated the way Amelia’s brow was furrowed, a frown pulling her face taut for their entire trek across East Town.
He searched for words that might help, to make them both feel better about what had happened, what was to come, but each time he came up empty.
Silas didn’t know what to say, because he had no answers.
He felt irrevocably stuck, trapped.
And he despised that Amelia was trapped there with him.
She sighed, and he glanced sidelong at her.
“I think we’re going to need help,” she said quietly.
“Yes, I think so.”
Another soft sigh. “Keeping it quiet isn’t important anymore. We need more eyes, more knowledge…just more, to help us figure out what’s in this journal…and if there might be a way to change it.”
He nodded. “Alright. Who do you trust?”
They looked at each other.
Amelia opened her mouth, closed it, and glanced away. “Very few, but that doesn’t matter. There’s some in mind I’d like to send messages to, see if they could meet us.”
She chewed on her lip. “Okay, well I trust your judgement, so whoever you deem worthy to help us, I’m on board.”
Amelia looked to him, eyes shining before ducking her head with a small nod.
The problem that Silas foresaw was Brinkley.
He didn’t know the man very well. Or at all. But from the way he lived a comfortable, peaceful life in his quaint cottage, led Silas to believe that inviting strangers to his home may not be a welcome suggestion.
“So,” Amelia said slowly over a dinner of soup and bread rolls.
She had been fiddling with her food for a while, barely eating.
Silas knew the feeling, he could hardly stomach anything with the nerves shooting through his body.
Brinkley looked up, catching Amelia’s pointed look.
“Uh…you know how we’re in a spot of trouble? ”
Brinkley raised a brow. “As per usual, but yes?”
Amelia licked at her lips, setting down the untouched piece of bread roll she had been slowly decimating between her fingers. “Well, we’ve decided we need some help.”
His spoon clanked against his bowl as he set it down, flicking his gaze to Silas before giving Amelia his attention.
She cleared her throat. “I know this is a lot to ask, but—”
“Sure,” Brinkley said, before she could even pose the question.
Amelia stalled, mouth half open.
Silas pushed his own bowl away. “You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to, Brinks.”
He shrugged casually from across the table, reaching for his glass of wine. “It’s Brinkley. Whatever you need, Lia.”
Silas refrained from rolling his eyes at the nickname. The familiarity between them sparked irrational jealousy. But he couldn’t ignore how helpful he had been so far, and grateful for the way he had been there for Amelia in the past.
“Oh, well,” Amelia said, shifting awkwardly, “you might want to hear what I’m asking first.”
Brinkley sipped daintily from his glass before setting it back down, smacking his lips as he did so. “Based on context, my home is about to become lodging to more bodies, I imagine?”
Amelia and Silas exchanged a glance. She looked back to her friend.
“Yes, if that’s not too much trouble,” she said, hands fidgeting. “I’m hoping to invite a few people to meet us here tomorrow. Finley and I are feeling a bit desperate for some help. We also wanted to know if you would join the meeting. We can explain everything then.”
Brinkley twisted his lips to the side, glancing between them. “Of course.”
Amelia blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you. This means so much to us.”
Silence fell again, this time more comfortable. They returned to their meals, and this time, Amelia began to eat.
After dinner, Amelia sent her messages by Wayglass, and then there was not much more they could do but wait for their response.
All of their books, their resources, everything…
was either back in Ivory City, or in Lunarian.
Silas felt lost without having knowledge readily available at his fingertips, and he knew Amelia felt similarly lost. They had read through Bane’s journal.
Most of it was empty, but the few pages he had written on described a ritual, drawing out the timeframe and incantation that was needed to perform the sacrifice.
Amelia had delved into any books she could find, looking for translations and ways to change spells to adapt the outcome. She was determined and fierce in her intent; that she would save Silas from the fate that had already been spelled out for him.
But time was running out, and it was becoming achingly clear.
Silas was seeing shadows in his periphery ever since the moon rose in the sky that evening, like he had one foot in their land, and another in the Midnight Realm already.
There were days left in their time limit, and it was like it called to him.
He felt the chill of it slithering down his spine, as though the ghosts that had been taken by the Realm were reaching for him, running their hands across his body.
It sent shivers coursing through him, despising how it was like being called home.
The only time he felt calm and relaxed, was when he was next to Amelia, when they were chatting or reading quietly together, catching one another’s eyes.
They spent the evening practicing their magic in small bursts, before sitting down to browse through Brinkley’s books yet again. Most of them were fiction, but there were a few books filled with articles from his time as a journalist student.
The only thing of interest they had found was an article Amelia had stumbled upon about the threat of the growing Dead Zone in East Town and how the Rift was becoming a more dangerous place to venture through, with mentions of disappearances occurring more regularly.
The article explored how more Waystones were being erected to mitigate the risk, reducing any need to pass through the Rift’s borders.
It hadn’t mentioned the bonded pair who had caused the Dead Zone.
Silas set aside yet another article clipping and leaned back in the chair, eyes closing with frustration.
“I know,” came Amelia’s voice from across the room.
He opened his eyes, focusing on her. She looked at him with a similar resigned expression he was certain mirrored his own.
“I feel so…fucking helpless,” Silas said angrily.
She shifted on the seat, leaning forwards. “We’ll figure this out.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
He just looked at her, eyes gazing at the way her hair was loose and flowing around her shoulders.
The way the light from the shifting flames in the fireplace cast shimmery shadows across her face.
The way her dark eyes seemed to soften the longer he stared at her, drinking her in.
Thinking that these might be his final days to look at her, to be near her, gave Silas such a jolt to his heart that his body physically jerked.
He glanced away, clearing his throat. “I think I’m ready for sleep.”
Amelia breathed in deeply. “Me too.”
They stood in unison, before looking at each other once more. Silas moved for the couch, pulling a blanket from the back before glancing back to her.
Her mouth was pulled into a small frown, watching him. “You’re not sleeping out here,” she said in a voice that was both small, yet fierce. A rosy colour entered her cheeks slowly.
His heart thudded at the command, at the thought of spending the night holding her in his arms. Her gaze fell to him, intense and electric. He couldn’t look away as she blushed, looking so painfully beautiful.
Her stare felt like a touch, it was so concentrated, penetrating. His breath stuttered as he took her in.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
Energy crackled in the confined space, and he inhaled it, making him feel warm all over. As though magnetised, Silas stepped towards her, finding that he craved her touch, to pull her into his arms.
“Alright,” he said, dropping the blanket and following her up the narrow hallway to her bedroom.
They dressed quietly for bed, not sparing a thought for modesty considering what they had done and seen of each other the night before. The memory of her before him, writhing beneath him, moaning for his touch, frustratingly burrowed into his mind.
She sat on the edge of her bed, tugging a sleep shirt into place.
To have her again, to have more of her, would be like entering into a dream. But the shadows in his periphery, the call of the Realm, were all reminders that he couldn’t have her. That in a handful of days, he was destined to disappear, leaving her with nothing but a memory.
It wouldn’t be fair.
She didn’t protest when all he did was climb into bed beside her, and snake an arm around her waist, simply holding her.
Amelia didn’t ask for him, didn’t try to kiss him or even speak on the moments they had shared in the cottage overlooking the sea. Silas felt like she understood. That she might be the only person he had ever known, who truly understood him.
He fell into sleep with that thought cradling him, wanting it to keep him warm, for however long he could have it.
The next morning, Amelia woke to find the bed empty and cold.
After a brief search, she found Silas in the small library, hunched over, elbows on his knees as he stared down at Bane’s journal, eyes narrowed in concentration.
He looked up only briefly as she entered the room and moved to sit beside him. He sighed as he looked back to the weathered journal pages.
“Bane truly was a scientist,” he said, fingers tracing a small drawing he had done of the Rift. “He’s marked ley lines between the Monoliths.” Silas tapped on the small iteration of the Ruins of Veilthorne. “Look what’s dead centre.”
Amelia hummed her agreement, a compulsion rippling through her to snatch the book away, to stop him from looking at it.
He turned a page.
“This ritual…the Midnight Rite,” he murmured again, “it’s so complicated.”
Amelia read the word she had already glanced over the evening before. Solamnoctis . “The lone night,” she translated, leaning closer, head tilting.
Silas shook his head. “It’s funny how the words of the incantation almost war with one another.
It speaks of connection, yet of severance in the same sentence.
It’s a vexing mix.” He looked up to her, eyes carrying a measure of pain.
“How are we supposed to find a way to change this spell? All we’ll do is mess it up, and we’ll both be taken. ”
Amelia’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
He glanced back down and turned to the next page, depicting charcoal sketches of two bodies entwined in overlapping circles. There was a small note at the very bottom, the scrawl was uneven, barely legible.
But I love her.
Silas was looking at the words, too, before he closed the book and tossed it to the side with a long exhale.
His jaw was tight as he looked at her.
“It feels inevitable,” he said despondently.
She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away from her before she could take it. Amelia sat back, heart aching. “We’re still scientists,” she said, trying to keep the emotion from her voice. “We have some time, and I think I have an idea…will you at least try?”
His face was still drawn, sombre, but he seemed intrigued by her words. His brow raised. “What kind of idea?”
Amelia bit at her lip and stood, offering her his hand. “Let me show you.”
A long silence lingered as he stared at her hand. He took it slowly, and she helped him stand. He met her eyes, and there was something so unnervingly distant in his expression. Something sad yet determined.
“Alright, I’ll listen,” Silas said. “But we also need to start preparing.”
He dropped her hand, and she moved her fingers in front of her to fidget nervously. “Preparing?”
Silas nodded. “Yes, preparing for the possibility that if we don’t find another way, that you will need to be willing…
to let me go.” His blue eyes blazed with something fierce, while her stomach dropped.
“The sacrifice requires willingness. If you can’t do that, Winslow… we fuck it all. And not just for us.”
The bond between them pulsed like a heartbeat.
She could see it in his eyes. That he was already preparing himself for that outcome, that he didn’t believe they would find a way.
Amelia just needed to prove it to him.