Chapter 21 #2
“That he went to Veil Night after I explicitly warned him not to.” His eyes settle on mine, and the look he gives me says it all. He tried to stop my brother, who didn’t listen, same as he tried to stop me. “Josh never came back after that night.”
“And all this time, you never looked for him?”
His head snaps toward me. “Do not insult me,” he says, the force of his indignation silencing me.
“Of course I looked. I asked questions I was not permitted to ask. I searched places you have never heard of. I nearly convinced Lucien I was disloyal to him and the Veil before I learned enough to understand that no one ever intended to give me an answer.”
I search his face for deception but only find anger, guilt, and something that looks too much like grief.
“You know, Josh told me about you,” Silas says. “He was always talking about his brilliant little sister, Jackie. Wouldn’t shut up about you.”
I blink. “What?”
“He said you were methodical. The disciplined one,” he says. “Said you could look at a problem for five minutes and find the flaw everyone else missed.”
A painful warmth spreads through my chest.
“Sounds like him exaggerating. He did that a lot.”
He smirks. “He also said you were stubborn, pathologically distrustful, and would rather die than admit you needed help.”
“Now that sounds more accurate.”
“I don’t know how this works. Maybe this is how all older brothers are with little sisters.” Silas gives a small shrug, but there’s an unexpected tenderness in his expression. “But you should know how highly he thought of you. Your brother loved you, Mercer. Very much.”
My vision blurs, and I blink back the sudden sting of tears, looking down before Silas can see. I know Josh loved me, but hearing it from someone else—especially someone like Silas—hits me in a way I wasn’t expecting.
“When you first arrived,” he continues, “I recognized you immediately from his pictures.”
“And you hated me on sight.”
A flash of irritation crosses his face. “No.”
I snort.
“Oh? So you’re just a cruel asshole to everyone, then?”
“What else was I supposed to do?” He throws up his hands, frustration cracking through his careful composure.
“You were doing exactly what Josh did. Asking the same questions. Going to the same places. Refusing every warning because you believed intelligence made you invulnerable.” His voice sharpens, but the anger no longer feels aimed solely at me.
It feels older. Directed backward, perhaps, toward my brother too.
“I knew where it would lead. I thought if I made you fear this place enough, you would leave before the Veil noticed you.”
“Guess I’m too stubborn for my own good, huh?”
He looks at me then, really looks, and something almost sorrowful in his eyes unsettles me more than his hostility ever has.
“Yes,” he says. “Regrettably, I was not successful on either account.”
I am not sure what to say. It’s disturbing to see him this way, behaving like a man who actually has emotions.
A new thought occurs to me, and I wonder if I’ve finally uncovered the real reason he’s here. Not because he particularly cares about me—or even thinks that highly of my problem-solving skills—but because helping me might ease some of the guilt he seems to carry over Josh’s disappearance.
“Silas, why do you really want to partner with me?”
“I told you.”
“You told me I’m useful. That isn’t enough.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, so quickly I might have imagined it. “Honestly… I’m not entirely sure,” he says with an exasperated shrug. “You are smart, that part is true, but you’re reckless.”
“I am,” I agree.
“You refuse to listen.”
“I do.”
“You wore that dress to the ball even after I explicitly told you not to attend,” he says, and my breath catches.
There’s a note of unmistakable satisfaction in his voice that makes me look at him more closely. And suddenly, it clicks. The beautiful black gown that appeared with no explanation. The one I assumed came from Rowan, but Rowan never actually admitted it was him.
“You sent the dress? Why?”
His gaze locks with mine, and I see a flash of heat in his dark eyes.
“Because I wanted to see you in it.”
This. Fucking. Man.
He’d told me not to come to the ball, spent half his time acting like he hated me, and all the while he’d secretly sent me the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen, simply because he wanted to see me wearing it.
Nothing about him makes sense. Every time I think I understand him, he does something that proves I don’t.
For one suspended moment, neither of us speaks.
I become acutely aware that I’m barefoot in my pajamas, alone in my bedroom with him.
That he is close enough for me to see the faint silver in his eyes, and that whatever look is there isn’t remotely fading—it’s simmering hotter, like he’s deciding whether to let me see more of it.
Something electric moves slowly beneath my skin, unwelcome but impossible to dismiss. Suddenly, I can think of nothing but that earth-shattering kiss we shared at the ball. His mouth on mine. How completely I lost myself in him.
But then I remember his cold dismissal after. He’d said he was simply curious that night. Maybe this is just more curiosity. Maybe everything is a game to a man like Silas Blackhollow.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, and I suggest you answer truthfully for once,” I demand. “Why do you want to partner with me, Silas?”
He just stares at me. For one impossible second, I think he’s going to walk away.
Instead, he explodes.
“I don’t fucking know!” he roars, the words tearing out of him, his composure breaking completely for the first time since I’ve known him.
“You complicate everything. You occupy more of my attention than you should. When I should be focused, I think about where you are and what you’re doing.
I worry about which rule you are about to break or whether you’ve managed to get yourself hurt while I’m occupied elsewhere.
The idea of you dying in The Rites makes me so crazy, I want to kill them all just for making you participate.
The way I feel about you is inconvenient.
It is distracting. And I hate myself for it.
” He looks away as though thoroughly disgusted by his admission.
“But most of all, I hate you for causing it.”
I am shocked into silence. Because unless I’ve completely lost my mind, Silas Blackhollow just told me he likes me. Or whatever deeply dysfunctional version of liking someone Silas is capable of.
Despite everything, a laugh escapes me. “That may be the worst declaration of affection anyone has ever made.”
“It was not a declaration of affection. It was a statement of my temporary insanity.” He steps closer, narrowing the distance until the tension between us feels like a living, breathing thing.
“I am not asking you to trust me, Jack. I know that’s impossible,” he says.
“But I am asking—no, I am begging—you to work with me.”
I look at the beautiful monster in front of me and see every reason I should refuse. The kidnapping. The threats. The secrets he still keeps. The Blackhollow name. Lucien and the Veil always surrounding him like a shadow with a pulse.
But I also cannot forget what happened in the tunnels.
I almost died because I refused help from the one person who understood the trial.
Worse, I almost lost my chance to find Josh because I was too suspicious to distinguish help from danger.
Whatever else Silas is, he understands the Veil in ways I don’t, and right now, that knowledge may be more valuable to me than trust.
Silas is not safe.
He may never be safe.
But he may be necessary.
“What would this alliance involve?” I ask.
His shoulders relax, relief passing through his eyes. He knows he’s got me.
“Sharing information. Coordinating strategy when it serves us both.” He fixes me with a look that makes it clear this next part isn’t negotiable. “Obeying me when I tell you to, though I realize doing what you’re told is particularly difficult for you.”
“I’ll consider obeying.”
His mouth curves, the hint of a smile slipping through. “You’re going to be unbearable, aren’t you?”
“Hey—you came to me, remember?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “I did.”
“If we’re going to do this, no more secrets.”
“That is unreasonably broad,” he says. “I can agree to no deliberate omissions regarding immediate threats.”
“Fine.” I hold out my hand. “But this doesn’t mean I trust you.”
“I would think less of you if it did.”
“And if you betray me, I will destroy you.”
A low, deep chuckle escapes him. “I believe you will try.”
He takes my hand, his grip warm and firm. The contact should feel formal, nothing more than an agreement between rivals. But then his thumb strokes absently over the inside of my wrist, as though even he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, and my pulse betrays me.
I tell myself I cannot, I will not, have feelings for this man. But I can make a deal with him if it will keep me alive long enough to find Josh.
I don’t accept because I want to win The Rites. I don’t care about the Veil or its power, its Houses, or the right to rule people who kill in the name of tradition.
I accept because Josh may still be alive, and the only way to find him is to fall deeper into the rabbit hole. My hope is more dangerous than grief, but I’m not ready to give it up yet.
“If this ‘alliance’ gets me killed,” I say, “I’m going to haunt you.”
Silas releases my hand slowly.
“You already do.”