Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“The stars do not actually flicker, you know,” Seraphina murmured, her voice barely louder than the soft tapping of rain against the windowpane.
“Yes, they do,” Alice answered, leaning into Seraphina on the bed.
“They don’t.”
“I’ve seen them. They do,” she countered quietly.
The trip to Mayfair had done nothing to calm the storm in her thoughts.
If anything, her sisters’ observations had only made the silence of Norwyn Manor more overwhelming.
Her eyes kept wandering toward the window, as if she could pierce the dark and see into the west wing where William’s study sat empty and silent.
She took a breath, seeking refuge in the tranquility of the moment.
“It is merely an illusion caused by the earth’s atmosphere,” she continued softly.
“The light travels through layers of air of varying temperatures and densities, bending the rays before they reach our eyes. The star itself remains perfectly steady. Completely undisturbed by the turbulence through which its light must pass.”
“So... the star is not afraid of the dark?”
“It is not. It holds steady.”
Seraphina paused and looked down to find Alice’s eyes open, watching her attentively. The child had not been asleep at all, or perhaps the sound of Seraphina’s voice had gently pulled her back to consciousness.
It never ceased to amaze Seraphina how naturally Alice gravitated toward natural philosophy. When Seraphina was a girl, her own devotion to science had been a slow, deliberate burn. A discipline cultivated over years of study rather than an instant passion.
Yet Alice was entirely different. They had tried reading classic children’s stories, English fables, and simple poetry, but the girl remained largely indifferent to them. It was always the mysteries of the physical world... the stars, the tides, the mechanics of the earth, that held her captive.
In the beginning, whenever Seraphina had started speaking to her about science, Alice would drift off to sleep almost immediately.
Seraphina had worried that she was boring the poor girl into unconsciousness with dense lectures.
But lately, the dynamic had shifted. Alice was staying awake longer, her eyes wide with curiosity as she asked thoughtful questions.
It was then that Seraphina realized that Alice wasn’t sleeping out of boredom; she had always been listening, fascinated by the world Seraphina described. It was an immense relief, and a source of wonder, to realize that science had become their shared language.
For the first time since Alice had been brought to the estate, she was sleeping entirely alone now. Without nursemaids hovering in the corner, without a guard at her door, and without the violent thrashing of night terrors. Her small face was pale but peaceful.
Seraphina offered a reassuring smile, closing the book on her lap. “The star is not afraid of the dark,” she continued. “It is the source of its own light. No matter how vast or cold the night around it may seem, its brightness comes from within itself.”
Alice shifted beneath the covers, turning onto her side and propping her cheek against her small, folded hand. “Like His Grace?”
Seraphina’s heart gave an unexpected flutter. “His Grace?”
“He stays steady,” Alice whispered, her articulation clearer than it had been in all the weeks prior. “When he came to the asylum. He was... strong. Like the place did not scare him.”
“Did the place scare you?”
Alice nodded. “A little. It was cold. Everyone was... yelling most of the time. But they did not yell at him.”
Seraphina felt a tight sensation in her throat.
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, leaning closer to snuggle Alice.
“Well, it would be strange for him to falter, Alice. He can be quite... commanding. His Grace protects those he cares for, and he cares for you.” She paused.
“I must say, Alice, you are speaking so much more clearly tonight. Does your chest not feel tight when you talk anymore?”
Alice shook her head slowly. “No.”
“That’s good,” Seraphina beamed. “I am so happy to hear that. You can talk all you want about anything. No one will ever stop you from speaking.”
“It is because you sit here. You read the books with the big words. It makes the room feel... heavy. Like a blanket.”
A swell of tenderness spread through Seraphina’s chest, so poignant that it caught her entirely off guard. “I am glad my big words can be of some use, then.”
They lay in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain. The peace in the room was tangible, a fragile sanctuary built slowly over weeks of patience.
“Your Grace?” Alice asked.
“Yes, my dear?” Seraphina replied gently, shifting closer on the edge of the mattress.
“I am sorry for waking up so many times,” Alice whispered, looking down at the edge of the quilt as her fingers picked at a loose thread. “I am sorry for making so much noise at night with the nightmares. I know I am supposed to be good and sleep quietly.”
“Oh, Alice, no,” Seraphina said, shaking her head.
“You must never apologize for that. You are a child, my sweet girl. You are allowed to be frightened. You are allowed to cry, to call out, or to simply need comfort when the dark feels too vast. It is not your duty to manage your fears alone so as not to disturb the house. It is the responsibility of the adults around you to make room for your feelings, to shelter you, and to keep you safe until the morning comes. Do you understand me?”
Alice looked up at her, blinking slowly as if digesting a concept entirely foreign to her. “Even if the dreams come every single night?”
“Even if they come every single hour,” Seraphina promised softly. “There is no limit on the patience here.”
Alice swallowed hard. “Where Mama and I lived... before... it was always... loud,” Alice murmured.
“It was a small room that we lived in. People were always shouting, or breaking things, or banging on the doors. It was hard to sleep because of the noise, so in my dreams people were always banging. Mama would hold my hand until the sun came up.”
She paused, staring past Seraphina toward the window glass where the rain tapped incessantly.
“But then one day, Mama got very quiet,” Alice continued. “When she got very sick. She went to sleep on the bed, and she didn’t wake up when the sun came up. I tried to shake her shoulder, but she was very cold. I thought she was just having a very deep dream because of the noise outside.”
Seraphina went entirely still as she processed Alice’s words. Her breath hitched in her throat, her grip on Alice tightening involuntarily, though she forced herself not to pull away.
“I stayed in the room with her,” Alice said simply.
“I sat on the floor with my doll. I stayed there for days waiting for her to wake up. But... but by the third day, Mama didn’t really look like Mama anymore.
Her skin started to turn a strange color, and her eyes stayed half-open, but she wasn’t looking at me.
She didn’t look pretty or nice anymore. She looked...
wrong. Nobody came to open the door for a very long time. ”
Alice let out a shuddering breath, her chin quivering just a fraction.
“That is why I didn’t like the dark, Your Grace.
That is why I used to be so afraid to close my eyes.
Whenever I went to sleep, I didn’t see nice things.
I saw Mama lying on that bed, cold and quiet, looking so wrong.
I thought... I thought I was going to see her like that forever. ”
She paused. “But lately... it is not like that anymore,” Alice whispered softly.
“When I lay down now, I try to think about the things you read to me. I think about how big the stars are, or how the rain turns into clouds and falls back down, or how the earth spins around without falling over. I think about the books with the small print, like the ones by Mr. Newton you told me about. My brain gets so busy thinking about it that there isn’t room for the bad things. ”
She squeezed Seraphina’s hand.
“Even when Mama does come into my dreams now... she is not scary anymore,” Alice added gently. “She looks pretty sometimes, like she used to when she was... not dead. I thought the nightmares would never end. I thought they would stay inside my head forever. But the stories fixed them.”
Horror at what the child had endured, mixed with an overwhelming wave of profound reverence, surged through Seraphina’s entire being.
That ordeal... a toddler trapped in a room with her deceased mother, entirely abandoned to the dark before anyone had realized what had happened.
It was a trauma so profound, so devastating, that it rendered all of Seraphina’s theories about human resilience completely useless.
Yet here was this fragile girl, using the very scientific principles Seraphina held dear to piece her own shattered world back together.
Seraphina, who prided herself on detachment and analyzing life through the cool lens of reason, felt her logical defenses shatter into dust. Tears burned fiercely behind her eyelids, spilling over her lashes before she could stop them.
Without a word, she pulled Alice flush against her chest.
Alice gasped softly in surprise, but then her arms reached around Seraphina, burying her face into Seraphina’s shoulder.
“I am so proud of you, Alice,” Seraphina wept softly, holding the child with an iron strength, her hand gently cradling the back of Alice’s head.
“I am so, so proud of how brave you are. But listen to me now. You are never, ever going to be left alone in the dark again. It is a big house. With a lot of people.”
She pulled back just enough to frame Alice’s small face in her hands, forcing the child to see the truth shining in her eyes.
“Whenever the dark grows too quiet, whenever those memories try to creep back in, you do not have to stay silent,” Seraphina declared, her voice trembling.
“You call out. You shout, you ring your bell, or you send for me. I will come to this room every single time. William will come. We will bring every book in the library if we must! You are safe here. I am sure your Mama wants to be here too, but just... try to live with the assurance that your mother is at peace, and no bad dream can reach through these walls to harm you.”
Alice stared at her, and slowly, she nodded. “Can we read more about the stars tomorrow?” Alice snuffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“Yes, we can,” Seraphina said, giggling. “We shall read every treatise, every diagram, and every volume on the universe until you know every constellation by heart.”
A long sigh escaped Alice’s chest. She sank back into her pillows, her heavy eyelids fluttering as the exhaustion caught up with her.
Seraphina stayed there, gently brushing soft curls away from Alice’s forehead, smoothing her hand over the quilt until the child’s breathing evened out into a slow cadence.
Just as Seraphina reached out to turn down the small nightlamp, Alice moved slightly beneath the covers. Her eyes opened just a sliver, misty with impending sleep.
“Your Grace?” Alice murmured, her voice barely a whisper.
“Yes, dear?”
“Will you be here forever?” Alice asked softly, her tiny hand reaching out to weakly clasp a fold of Seraphina’s dress. “You will stay?”
Seraphina froze. Her mind instantly spun backward to the reality of her life, the contract, the arrangements, the transactional marriage she had forged with William.
They were bound by a temporary agreement, a functional alliance designed solely to protect her, safeguard his ward, and unmask a blackmailer.
The terms had been crystal clear from the beginning.
Once their goals were accomplished, once Alice was healed and the mystery solved, the marriage would be annulled. They would part ways.
She was not meant to stay. She was merely a temporary guardian, a passing figure in a grand house, destined to leave once her duty was done.
“Alice...” Seraphina began softly, her throat constricting so tightly that the words tasted like ash.
She opened her mouth to construct a rational, careful response that would soothe the child without uttering a lie. But the words died before they could form.
How could she speak of annulments and contractual timelines to a child who had just laid bare the horrors of her past?
How could she tell this fragile little girl that the woman promising to protect her from the dark was already preparing her own exit?
Seraphina stared down into Alice’s heavy-lidded eyes, entirely paralyzed by her own deception. Her vast academic vocabulary, her brilliant logic, her years of studying philosophy... none of it offered her a single sentence that was both honest and merciful.
Before Seraphina could force a word past her lips, Alice’s eyes drifted fully closed. Her grip on Seraphina’s skirt loosened, her hand falling limply onto the mattress as she slipped completely into a deep rest.
Seraphina sat motionless beside the bed for a long time, the silence of the room pressing heavily against her chest.
Slowly, carefully, Seraphina stood up on trembling legs. She pulled the quilt over Alice’s shoulders, lingering to brush a soft kiss against the top of the child’s head. Then she turned and walked to the door, stepping out into the corridor.
As the door shut behind her, Alice’s unanswered question settled deep into Seraphina’s soul. For the first time since she had signed her name to the marriage register, Seraphina stood alone in the dark, questioning not her logic, but her heart, and wondering how she could ever bear to walk away.