A shiver traced down Julia's spine, a phantom echo of the dining room door's violent slam. Her legs were not her own, each step up the grand staircase a defiant climb against an unseen current. The sconces flickered, their uncertain light painting the upper corridor in shifting, hungry shadows.
Her head throbbed, a relentless drumbeat against the inside of her skull. Her nose still ached, a dull, persistent throb beneath the metallic ghost of dried blood. And beneath it all, a cold, sharp guilt. Guilt for the defiance that had spilled from her. Guilt for breathing when Marian did not.
Silas walked beside her, silent, a profound and grounded presence. He did not touch her, yet she felt the faint heat radiating from him, a stark contrast to the cold corridor air. His breathing, steady and deep, became a silent rhythm next to her own ragged gasps.
Elsie, a small, comforting shadow, hovered on her other side. Her hand, feather-light, pressed against Julia's elbow, a silent guide. When they finally reached Julia's door, Elsie opened it without a word, ushering her inside as if the threshold itself were sacred.
Inside, the harsh lines of the hall softened. The fire in the hearth had dwindled to embers, yet it still crackled faintly, painting the room in a warm, bruised orange. The air was soft, carrying the lingering scent of lavender from a sachet on the nightstand. Julia took three steps before her knees betrayed her.
Silas moved, swift and sure. His arms were around her waist, easing her gently, carefully, onto the edge of the bed. "You're alright," he murmured, his voice a low, steadying hum against the chaos in her mind. "There we go."
Julia let out a slow, trembling breath, her fingers knotting in the bedsheets, seeking purchase, an anchor in the spinning world.
"Elsie," she whispered, her voice raspy, clinging to the edge of sound. "Could you—some water?"
"Of course, miss." Elsie's gaze flickered to Silas, a long, unreadable look on her small, solemn face. "I'll boil some and bring it with a warm cloth. And maybe tea, if you'll take it."
Julia's stomach churned at the thought of tea. Her memory, sharp despite the pain, brought back Mr. Finch's unsettling presence, his too-attentive gaze, the faint, bitter aftertaste in her cup. "No—no tea," she managed, her voice firm, despite its weakness. "Not if—not if he touches it."
Elsie's understanding was immediate, wordless. "I'll make it," she said, her voice quiet but resolute, a steel core beneath the gentle words. "Not Finch. Just me. No one else'll touch it. I swear it on the Bible, miss."
Julia hesitated, then nodded, a wave of gratitude washing over her, cool and soothing. Elsie was a beacon in this house of shifting shadows. Elsie vanished into the hall, her skirts whispering behind her like secrets. The soft click of the door closing felt like a fragile seal, holding the darkness at bay.
Silas crouched in front of Julia, studying her face with an intensity that saw too much. He noted the pale cast of her skin, the faint blue shadows beneath her eyes, the dark hair falling wildly around her, a storm against a pale sky. "You're still bleeding," he said gently, his amber eyes clouded with concern.
"I know." The admission felt heavy, a weight in the quiet room.
"Let me—" He pulled a clean handkerchief from his coat pocket, surprisingly crisp for a man who'd just been manhandled. "Tilt your head back, just a little. There."
She obeyed, reluctantly. His fingers were warm and dry as they pressed the cloth gently to her nose. A strange intimacy settled between them, born of chaos, of shared defiance in the face of a predatory world.
"You're awfully domestic for someone who claims to be a menace," Julia murmured, a ghost of a smile touching her lips despite the ache in her head.
He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through the quiet. "I'm a man of contradictions," he murmured back, his eyes dancing with quiet amusement, ancient as amber. "Besides, if I can survive two years in the slums of Whitechapel on lard, gin, and spite—I can manage a nosebleed."
Julia gave a quiet, humorless laugh, but it hitched, a small sound of pain. Then she winced. "It's worse than usual."
Silas's brow furrowed, the amusement fading from his eyes, replaced by a deep concern. "So it's happened before?"
A pause, heavy with unspoken history, with shadows she rarely allowed to surface. Julia lowered the handkerchief slightly, her gaze distant, fixed on the dying embers in the fireplace, as if seeing an old, forgotten fire. "Yes."
"Since you got here?" His voice was careful, probing, like a surgeon's scalpel.
"No." The admission came slowly, reluctantly, pulling a truth she rarely spoke into the cool light of the room. "It started when I was seven. After my parents died. I went to live with my aunt Evelyn in London." She swallowed, remembering the dark, cold rooms of her aunt's house, rooms that swallowed light and sound. "I started getting the migraines first. Then the fainting. The nosebleeds came later."
Silas stilled, his hand still gently pressing the cloth. The air around them seemed to thicken, charged with unspoken questions, with the weight of her past.
"You've had this since childhood?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper, surprise evident in the hushed tone.
"Yes." Her voice dropped further, a secret shared between the two of them, held close in the quiet room. "But it's never been like this. Not like here. It's… worse. Sharper. I wake up dizzy, or not at all. Sometimes I hear… things. Feel things." She hesitated, then added in a whisper, her voice barely audible, as if the walls themselves had ears, "Like the house is watching. Like it's waiting."
Silas leaned forward, his voice softer now, edged with quiet conviction, a stark contrast to his earlier biting sarcasm. "Then leave."
Julia blinked, the word a shock against the pounding in her head, against the very fabric of her being. "What?"
"This house," he said, motioning vaguely toward the ancient, looming walls around them, walls that held too many secrets, "is a coffin dressed in gold. It didn't just kill Marian, Julia. It's feeding on you. You're getting sicker." His gaze swept over her pale face, a deep concern in his eyes, stark and unyielding. "You've barely slept. You're trembling all the time. Your health—you—should come before any ghost of a truth you're chasing."
She shook her head, a stubborn refusal, an unyielding will against the rising tide of fear. "I've lived with this since I was a child. It hasn't killed me yet." Her defiance, though physically weak, burned bright, a tiny, fierce flame.
"That's not the point," Silas said, his voice firm, unwavering, a rock in the swirling current. "It will. You're trying to solve Marian's death while slowly becoming her. You're inviting the same fate."
Her voice sharpened, defensive, a prickle of annoyance rising like static electricity. "I'm not Marian." The comparison, though often drawn by others, always rankled, a barb in her side.
"I didn't say you were," Silas said, watching her with unsettling stillness, his amber eyes seeing too much, dissecting her very soul. "But I loved a woman who thought she could bear anything. Who said 'it hasn't killed me yet' until one day it did. She was consumed, Julia. You are on the same path."
Julia looked away, swallowing, the truth of his words a bitter pill, a taste of ash on her tongue. She thought of Marian's portrait, her haunted eyes, reflecting a sorrow too deep for words. She thought of the chilling words in Marian's journal, whispered from the grave. "This is my fight. I need to know." Her resolve was iron, unbending, despite her fragility.
Silas stood slowly, walked to her washbasin, poured water into a ceramic bowl, and dipped a clean towel into it. He came back, kneeling again, gently blotting her face, his touch surprisingly tender, a feather-light brush against her skin.
"If you won't leave," he said quietly, his voice a low rumble, a promise wrapped in shadow, "then let me help you. Keep me here. Let me keep you steady."
She glanced at him sharply, a flash of her usual skepticism, a challenge in her eyes. "You're not my protector." The role of a damsel was not one she relished, nor one she would ever embrace.
"I know," he said with a soft smirk, his eyes glinting, a mischievous spark in the dim light. "I'm just the man you hid in your bathroom while you bathed."
Julia flushed, a wave of heat rising in her cheeks despite the chill of the room, a betraying warmth. "That was necessity." The memory of the cramped, dark space, the intimacy of their shared secret, still made her heart quicken, a drum against her ribs.
"Oh, I'm sure," Silas said, dabbing the edge of her cheek, his voice low and warm, tinged with a teasing note, a whisper of temptation. "Still—an intimate moment, Miss Harrow." His gaze lingered, a silent challenge, a question hanging in the air between them.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to reassert some control over the conversation, over herself, over the treacherous beat of her own heart. "You're impossible."
"I've been called worse." He grinned, a flash of white in the dim light, a wolf's smile.
He stood and leaned against the post of her bed, arms crossed, his eyes glinting in the candlelight, unreadable depths. "But what you did down there—that was magnificent. The way you stood between me and Alistair like a queen before battle. You commanded him."
Julia blinked, the words echoing oddly, not quite fitting with her perception of events. "I didn't command him." She had merely reacted, fueled by instinct, by a visceral revulsion at the violence, a primal need to intervene.
Silas chuckled softly. "You did. Marian once begged Alistair to let me stay. Pleaded. He refused her, cold as ice. And you? You barely raised your voice and he backed down. He listens to you, Julia. That's no small thing. Perhaps he truly cares for you after all."
She looked down at her lap, brow furrowed, a new confusion stirring within her, a jumble of tangled emotions. Alistair's words, his possessiveness, his unexpected vulnerability—it was all a jumbled mess she couldn't untangle. "I didn't do it for power."
"I know." His voice softened, losing its playful edge, becoming something deeper, more resonant. "You did it because you're strong. And good. And terrifying when angry. Which, for the record, is terribly attractive."
She swatted his arm, a weak attempt at chastisement, a whisper of a reprimand. "Silas—"
"I'm just saying," he said, catching her wrist with one hand as she tried to pull away. His grip was firm but gentle, his thumb tracing a slow circle on her skin, a brushfire of sensation. "You saved me. You chose me. Against the lord of this manor, against every whisper of propriety. You have no idea how rare that is, Julia."
"I didn't choose you," Julia said, pulling her wrist free, the warmth of his touch lingering like a brand. Her mind raced, grappling with his words, with the implications of her actions, a sudden, blinding clarity. "I chose the truth. I chose justice for Marian."
He tilted his head, his gaze piercing, seeing through her carefully constructed defenses, seeing past the layers she presented to the world. "Are you sure?"
She opened her mouth, a response forming on her tongue, sharp and quick. Then closed it. His question hung in the air, a challenging whisper, an unanswered echo in the silent room. Had she chosen the truth, or had she chosen him, even unconsciously, drawn by an unspoken force?
Outside, the old floorboards creaked with age and unseen movements, a restless sigh of the ancient house. A cold draft whispered under the door, a reminder of the vast, echoing silence of Blackwood Hall, a silence that hummed with secrets. But the room remained still—a pocket of warmth, a heartbeat between battles, a fragile sanctuary against the encroaching darkness.
Elsie returned then, carrying a silver tray, a small, resolute figure. Her face was flushed from the heat of the kitchen fire, her movements precise. "I made chamomile," she announced, her voice soft but earnest, a quiet declaration of loyalty. "From my own herbs. I swear it, Miss Harrow. No one else touched it."
Julia nodded, quietly moved by the maid's fierce loyalty, a warmth spreading through her chest. "Thank you, Elsie." The genuine kindness was a balm to her frayed nerves, a soothing melody in the cacophony of her mind.
Elsie poured her a cup with careful, trembling hands and set it on the nightstand beside the bed. The steam rose, carrying the soothing scent of chamomile, a promise of peace.
Silas turned to her as Elsie busied herself by the dying fire, arranging the tools. He stepped closer, leaning in, and whispered low into her ear, his voice a conspiratorial rumble, a secret shared. "Drink," he said gently, his gaze soft but insistent, holding hers. "For me. For your head."
Julia hesitated, her eyes meeting his over the rim of the cup. Something flickered behind her gaze—part warning, part curiosity, a nascent spark of something she couldn't yet name, a fragile, dangerous thing. She lifted the cup to her lips, the warmth of the ceramic spreading through her cold hands, a comfort she hadn't realized she craved.
Silas watched her drink, a knowing smile playing on his lips, a silent triumph. Then, his voice a quiet murmur, he added, "You're braver than either of us, Julia Harrow. That's what frightens Alistair. That's what truly frightens him."
A sudden, sharp knock echoed through the room.
It was firm, deliberate. It cut through the quiet, stealing the very air, shattering the fragile peace.
Julia's hand, still holding the cup, froze midway to her lips, suspended in time.
Silas's amber eyes, which had held such a knowing amusement moments before, snapped to the door. The humor vanished, replaced by a swift, predatory stillness, a hunter coiled to strike. Elsie, by the hearth, gasped, a tiny, choked sound, her head whipping towards the sudden intrusion, her small face paling.
The room held its breath, waiting.