10. Untethered
The silence of Blackwell Keep wasn’t peaceful.
It wasn’t the quiet of a forest or the hush of a snow-covered field.
It was heavy, a physical thing, like water pressing against the eardrums at the bottom of a deep lake.
Three days in the Keep had taught Fern that much.
Silence was the rule; noise was the exception.
And Lord Blackwell built that silence stone by stone.
He sat across from her in the library, the sprawling oak table between them covered in scrolls of parchment and leather-bound tomes that smelled of vinegar, dust, and time.
The perpetual dusk beyond the high windows remained unchanged, but the wardcandles lining the pillars had dimmed, marking the end of their midday session.
“Again,” Lord Blackwell said. He didn’t look up from his own reading. His quill scratched against the parchment—scritch, scritch, pause—a rhythm she now lived by.
Fern gritted her teeth, staring at the open book before her. The text swam in front of her tired eyes. “The fundamental axiom of Sanguine Mechanics states that output variance is inversely proportional to the stability of the practitioner’s emotional core.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning… meaning if I get angry, I blow things up.”
The scratching stopped. Lord Blackwell slowly lowered his quill.
He looked up, bored disappointment marring his otherwise flawless features.
“If you refer to the volatile discharge of force as ‘blowing things up’ in front of the High, you will find yourself scrubbing the scullery floors before the first course is served. Try again. Precision, Miss Silverbell. This is the most important law of Sanguine Mechanics and it has taken three days for you to reach this point. Embarrassing, really.”
Fern gripped the edge of the table. Her knuckles were ashen.
“It means,” she corrected, forcing her voice to remain steady, “that without emotional regulation, the channels of magic widen uncontrollably, resulting in a loss of focus and an increase in destructiveness. Like… like water bursting through a channel.”
“Acceptable analogy. And the House of Sterling?”
“What does that have to do with Sanguine Mechanics?”
“Everything connects,” he said coldly, returning to his writing.
“The House of Sterling holds dominion over the river trade routes of the Silverflow. Their focus is water. Their magic requires fluidity, adaptability. If a Sterling loses his temper, he summons a flood and drowns his own barge. Control is not just a theory; it is a survival strategy. Now, their sigil?”
“The Silver Serpent.”
“And their allegiance?”
Fern glanced at her notes. “Nominally to the High, but historically independent due to their control of the southern locks.”
“Acceptable.” He finally raised his eyes, cobalt and giving nothing away. “But you hesitated on the sigil. Hesitation implies uncertainty. In the court, uncertainty is a weakness that will be exploited before you can draw your next breath.”
Fern slammed the book shut, making dust motes dance in the gloom. “I don’t care about the Silver Serpent. I don’t care about trade routes or output variance. I don’t care about any of this!”
Lord Blackwell slowly closed his own book. “You are not here to care, Miss Silverbell. You are here to learn.”
“I have learned,” she snapped, the frustration of the last few days boiling over.
The lessons were endless, the isolation absolute.
She had seen no one but him and Lina, who brought her meals and turned down her bed.
“I have memorized your lineages. I have practiced your etiquette until my back aches. I have recited your theories until my throat is raw. Now I want something in return.”
Lord Blackwell leaned back in his high-backed chair, lacing his fingers together. He looked at her with the detached curiosity of a collector appraising a rare piece. “You’re in no position to make demands.”
“I am a guest, aren’t I? You keep saying I have been ‘elevated.’ Elevated people are allowed to write letters, are they not?
” She placed her hands flat on the table to stop them from shaking.
She needed this. She needed to know they were real, that she hadn’t just imagined the life she had left behind.
“If I can’t see my parents, I want to send a message to them. I want to tell them I’m safe.”
The hairs on Fern’s arms stood on end as Lord Blackwell rose. He walked to the window, looking out at the barren grounds where the red fog clung to the twisted iron gates.
“That is not possible.”
“Why?” Fern demanded, standing as well. She circled the table, forcing him to acknowledge her. “Are there no couriers on the third tier? Is the ink too expensive? I’ll carry it down the mountain myself if I have to!”
“Communication with Ashford Cross has been restricted,” Lord Blackwell said, his voice void of inflection. “By order of the High. The region is currently… unstable. No messages in or out until the readjustment is complete.”
“Unstable? Readjustment?” Her heart constricted. “You said they were safe. You said they were under surveillance.”
“And they are,” he replied. “Silence is part of their protection.” He turned to face her, his silhouette cut sharp against the dimmed wardlight.
“As I’ve said before, your focus must remain here.
Thoughts of home are a distraction. A liability.
You cannot help them, Miss Silverbell. You can only help yourself by mastering what I’m trying to teach you. ”
“They are my parents,” she whispered, the coldness of his logic stealing her breath. “You treat them like they’re just… pieces on a board. Like they’re tokens.”
“Everyone is a piece on a board,” he replied, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
He took a step toward her, looming. “Even you. Even me. Sentiment is a noose, Miss Silverbell. If you send a letter, you create a trail. You create leverage. If someone were to intercept that letter, they would know exactly where to strike to hurt you. Do you want to paint a target on their backs?”
Fern recoiled. Target. “Who would want to hurt me?”
“I told you,” he said, turning back to the table and flipping his book open again. “Everyone. Dismissed. Dinner is at the seventh bell. Do not be late.”
Fern fled the library before she could scream.
She walked blindly through the corridors, her footsteps echoing on the stone like a heartbeat. She didn’t know where she was going; she just needed to be away from him. Away from the smell of old parchment and the weight of his gaze.
Sentiment is a noose.
She hated him. She hated how cold he was, his refusal to see her as human. But more than that, she hated the terrified flutter in her chest that suggested he might be right.
She quickly turned a corner, then another, then through a door on her left. The polished black marble of the main wing gave way to rough grey stone. The wardlights here were spaced further apart, leaving pools of shadow that stretched across her path.
Voices.
They drifted from around the bend ahead—heavy boots, the clink of mail.
“High’s looking for the leakage in the accounts,” a deep voice grumbled.
“Let him look,” another answered, a low rasp. “As long as he doesn’t look in the cellar.”
Fern pressed herself into a shallow alcove behind a tapestry and froze, the wool rough against her cheek. Stemblood guards. She held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut as they passed. They were so close she could smell the oil on their armor and the sour tang of their sweat.
“Cellar’s full enough as it is,” the first one laughed. It was an ugly sound.
She waited until their footsteps faded before she dared to move. She was lost. She had taken a wrong turn without realizing it.
She stumbled down a narrow staircase, the air growing cooler, smelling of roasted garlic and damp earth. This wasn’t the library wing. This wasn’t the guest quarters.
She found herself in a long, narrow service hallway. A discarded crate sat against one wall. She leaned against it, her legs suddenly turning to pudding, and slid down until she hit the floor. She buried her face in her knees, fighting back the hot sting of tears.
“You’ll catch a chill sitting on the stone like that.”
Fern’s head snapped up.
Willem stood at the end of the hall, a basket of apples resting on his hip. He looked different than he had in the kitchens—wary, his eyes darting to the shadows, his shoulders hunched.
“I don’t care,” Fern muttered, though she wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her hand.
Willem shifted the basket, approaching her slowly, like one might approach a startled doe. “He has that effect on people. Lord Blackwell.”
“He’s a statue,” Fern said bitterly. “A statue that gives orders and speaks in riddles.”
Willem offered a small, humorless smile. He set the basket down and leaned against the opposite wall. “He is what he has to be. High Blackwell watches everything. Even the dust. If the son shows cracks, the father… corrects them.”
“He wouldn’t let me write to them,” she confessed, the words spilling out as tears rolled down her cheeks. “My parents. He said communication is restricted. He said it would put a target on their backs.”
Willem’s expression tightened. He glanced up and down the corridor, ensuring they were truly alone.
Then he lowered his voice to a thread. “If he said restricted, he means forbidden. High Blackwell… he prefers his new acquisitions to be untethered. A horse runs faster if it isn’t looking back at the stall. ”
“I am not an acquisition. I am not a horse.”
Willem looked at her then with a sad knowing that made him seem older than his years. “Aren’t you?”
Fern fell silent. The truth of it, the truth she had been denying since Sturgis had dragged her from her home, settled heavy in her stomach. She was an acquisition. A resource. A sack of blood and bone to be used any way the High saw fit.
“I need to get out,” she whispered. “Not… not escape. I know I can’t. The blood carriages, the guards… I know.” She took a shaky breath. “But I need to breathe. I need a place he doesn’t control. A place he isn’t watching.”
Willem hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek as if he was weighing her request. He looked at the ceiling, then the floor, and finally at Fern.
“Every Keep has veins,” he said softly. “Paths for the blood to move without being seen. The servants’ passages. Highbloods and Stembloods alike pretend they don’t exist. If they don’t exist, they don’t have to think about the hands that keep their world standing.”
He walked to a section of the wall that looked identical to the rest—grey stone, dimly lit by a flickering sconce. He pressed his thumb against a specific groove in the mortar, low near the floor, almost invisible unless you knew where to look.
A faint click echoed.
A narrow panel of stone swung inward with a groan.
Fern stared. Beyond the opening lay a darkness deeper than the hallway, smelling of dry rot and old stone. “Where does it go?”
“Everywhere,” Willem said. “Behind the library. Under the dining hall. Up to the rookery. It’s tight, and it’s dark, and the spiders have claimed most of it.
” He looked at her seriously. “But it’s below his notice.
He doesn’t go there. High Blackwell considers it beneath him to walk where the rats roam. ”
Fern stood up, moving toward the opening. A draft of cool, stale air blew out, ruffling the hem of her skirt. It was narrow, close, wrong.
And she wanted it anyway.
“Show me,” she said.
Willem shook his head. “I can’t. I have duties—if the apples aren’t in the pantry by the second bell, Silas will have my hide.
Well, he’ll try.” He grinned. “But…” He gestured to the dark.
“If you keep to the wall on your left, you’ll always find a way back to the kitchens. If you go right… well. Just don’t.”
“How deep?” Fern asked.
“Deep enough,” he said. “Not today. Take time and breathe today.”
Fern stepped closer to the opening. The darkness beyond was narrow, close enough to brush both shoulders if she dared enter. It did not look welcoming.
It didn’t look safe.
But it didn’t look watched.
Her fingers hovered near the edge of the stone panel. She imagined slipping inside. Walking until the Keep above her became distant and unimportant. Walking until she could forget the eyes. The rules. The Blackwell presence pressing down on her.
The dark didn’t move; it simply waited.
“Another time,” Willem murmured, gently turning Fern.
She memorized the groove in the mortar. The faint scratch in the stone where the panel met the wall. The exact place where the wardlight flickered.
Then Willem pressed the stone back into place.
Click.
Fern drew a steady breath. She may not have slipped into the darkness, but she knew now there was another way through the Keep.
And knowing was enough.