Earlier that morning, Dash had been bored out of his mind. His tutor had canceled again, and no one had bothered to tell him where his mother had gone. Not that anyone ever told him much these days.
The house was quiet, sterile in a way that scraped against his nerves. He'd wandered through the corridors, the same ones he'd known since childhood, but now they felt unfamiliar, hollowed out somehow.
Every room he passed whispered a kind of absence, and Mara's, his mother's, disappearance hung over everything like a question no one dared ask aloud. No messages. No notes. Just... gone. Even the staff seemed uneasy, exchanging glances when they thought he wasn't looking.
He'd tried distracting himself, books, music, and even pacing in the solarium, where his mother usually spent her days, but nothing stuck. That's why he'd ended up here, half-lurking near the west wing, not because he expected to hear anything interesting, but because boredom and unease had finally outpaced his better judgment.
Lately, being in the house felt like moving through the aftermath of something no one would name. The silence wasn't peaceful, it was suffocating, pressed thick against his chest, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Dash couldn't put it into words, but the air had changed. He'd feel it in odd moments: walking past a room and forgetting why he was there, or pausing on the stairs with the strange urge to cry for no reason at all.
It was a quiet kind of ache, the kind that didn't come from any one event but built up in layers, missing footsteps that should've echoed down the hall, a scent that vanished from the sitting room, light falling wrong through the windows.
Grief, maybe. But for what, or who, he couldn't say. His mother hadn't died, had she? No one confirmed anything, and that hurt worse. Because something was gone, and it was real, and no one would speak it aloud. It made everything in the house feel wrong, like a dream that frayed at the edges the longer you stayed in it.
Dash lounged sideways on the velvet chaise like a bored prince exiled from meaning. Afternoon sunlight spilled across the polished wood floor in golden fragments, catching the dust in soft halos.
He balanced a textbook over one knee, open but unread. The words, dense, dry, and dispassionate, blurred together into meaningless squiggles.
With a sigh that was half frustration and half surrender, Dash let the book slide off his leg. It thumped against the cushion and lay still, as discarded as his motivation. He leaned back deeper into the chair, running his fingers along the embroidered edges of the upholstery. The pattern was ridiculously ornate, flowers curling into birds curling into thorns. So much effort, all for furniture no one used unless they were being punished by boredom.
Outside the tall window, the garden was in full bloom, bees drifting like thoughts between the roses. It should've been peaceful. It looked peaceful. But peace wasn't what Dash felt. Not really.
Something about the quiet had teeth.
He stared out at the garden, jaw slack, eyes glazed. Behind his lazy posture, his mind spun. Not with exams or assignments, but with Leo.
There was something off about him lately. Not just the usual strange. Not the cool, cryptic big brother persona Dash had grown up watching from the corner of the room. This was different. Leo's silences had grown longer, his shadows darker.
Their father's glances at him were no longer dismissive; they were cautious. Apprehensive.
And Leo wasn't the only one being watched.
Dash had felt it too. The pressure. The tension in the halls. The kind that curled behind every word at the dinner table. The kind that made a fourteen-room estate feel like a pressure cooker.
He'd tried to ignore it. Pretend nothing was unraveling. But lately, even pretending felt like a lie.
Then, he heard it.
Voices.
Low. Urgent. Coming from the west wing.
Dash froze. His body went still, head tilting just slightly toward the sound. The voice was unmistakable: Harry Lennox. His father.
The words were muffled, warped by distance and thick mahogany doors, but the tone was unmistakable: sharp, clipped, urgent.
Dash sat up straighter. His ears strained.
Another voice answered, calmer, unfamiliar. Male.
He swallowed. His instincts screamed for him to move. To go back to his book, act normal. But his curiosity was louder.
He'd always known there were rooms in the house he wasn't meant to enter. Conversations he wasn't meant to hear. Secrets, sealed behind polite smiles and legacy.
But right now? Right now, he wanted to know. Needed to know.
What was his father hiding?
What did Leo have to do with it?
And why, deep in his gut, did Dash already feel like the truth was something he wouldn't be able to unhear?
He rose from the chaise gradually, careful not to make a sound. His textbook remained behind, lying open like a forgotten truth.
Initially, he had every sense of walking away from the scene, convinced that his father's meetings and discussions were none of his concern. He had learned early on to respect the boundaries between their worlds. However, as he paused, he noticed something unsettling in his father's voice that made him hesitate.
It was a departure from the usual calm and controlled authority he had always associated with him. This time, the tone was sharp and laced with an urgency that sent a jolt of worry through him.
There was an underlying draft of anger in his words, something primal and distressing that sparked a sense of unease. This wasn't just a typical conversation; something was awry, and he felt compelled to listen.
"...if his memories are returning, we'll need to reinforce the trigger phrase."
Dash froze, his heart racing as he processed his father's words. Confusion swirled in his mind, mingling with a sense of suspicion. Who were they discussing? He strained to grasp the implications.
His father's voice, usually stable and encouraging, carried an unusual assertiveness that made the hairs on the back of Dash's neck stand on end. There was a veiled haste in the way he spoke, revealing that something consequential was at stake.
"Memories? Trigger phrase?" The terms echoed in Dash's thoughts, fragmenting into a thousand questions. What memories? Why did they need a trigger phrase? The very idea sent a shiver down his spine, kindling a trace of fear that mixed with curiosity. Something was transpiring, and he felt like the floor was moving beneath him.
There was no mistaking it; this was not sheer business talk. The way "memories" slipped from their lips felt too intimate, as if they were conveying a riddle unduly delicate for the outside world. And that term, "trigger phrase"...?
He remembered it all again, recognizing the hushed whispers of the servants as they swapped sneaking glimpses and mutterings, and the bizarre references his father sometimes made in moments of profound deliberation.
And then there was the other question that loomed in Dash's mind like a tempest. Who was "he"? Dash's curiosity ignited into a vigorous need to discover the truth, to learn the depths of his father's involvement.
Before he fully realized it, Dash found himself in motion, soft and intentional, as he made his way toward the doorway that led into the hallway. His breath hitched in his chest, shallow and quick, as he crept down the dark passageway, leaving the warm light of the parlor behind.
Each step was calculated, sunlight against the worn wooden floorboards.
The further he embarked, the more the light receded, pulling him toward the solemn shadows that accumulated near his father's study. He could feel the thrum of his pulse in his ears.
The hallway extended endlessly before Dash, its murky light flitting ominously overhead like a distant warning. A shudder of doubt crept into his mind as he took tentative steps, uncertainty biting at him. Was he truly heading in the right direction? Just as his anxiety began to rise and his breath quickened, he heard his father's voice again.
"We can't afford to let him regain control. If the memories come back fully, if he remembers what happened before, it could ruin everything."
Dash's heart lurched, each word striking him like a bodily blow. The importance stood unsettling, wringing his stomach into a mess. Regain control? What did his father mean? Again, who was "he"?