Chapter 63

Silas's arrival had splintered the evening like a crack in glass. The candlelight wavered, casting dancing shadows, but Alistair did not. He stood unmoved by the interruption, as though Silas was not a man but a draft he intended to close the door on. Julia, still standing near the carved chair, didn't move. Her hands were clenched, her shoulders set, every muscle taut with lingering tension.

Her eyes darted between the two men, a wire strung too tight. Every instinct screamed at her to flee, to run, and yet she knew there was nowhere safe to go within Blackwood Hall's cold embrace. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, punctuated only by the distant crackle of the hearth.

Alistair's voice broke it first. Cool. Controlled.

"Mr. Corwin," he began, his tone that of a host humoring an unruly guest, a single breath from dangerous. "To what do we owe this… unannounced visit? Do you make a habit of bursting into private dinners?"

Silas ignored the feigned civility, his jaw tight, muscles clenching in his neck. His voice was darker than it had been in months, raw with barely suppressed fury.

"I could ask you the same, Blackwood," Silas retorted, his gaze burning into Alistair's. "Luring Miss Harrow into a room with locked doors and candlelight, speaking in riddles, whispering threats like seduction. What, precisely, do you think you are doing?"

Julia stepped in, her voice quick and steady, cutting through the escalating tension.

"I invited him, Alistair," she lied, the words hanging in the air—an offering, a shield, a desperate choice. Her gaze remained fixed on Silas, avoiding Alistair's piercing blue eyes. She didn't need to look at him; she felt his silence like a blade drawn behind her back.

Alistair's expression didn't change, but something in him shifted, subtly. His smile froze at the edges, becoming something waxen and brittle, like old parchment. He said nothing. That was the warning.

The silence that followed was suffocating, heavier than before. No one moved, not a twitch, not a breath. The flames in the hearth crackled, a mocking counterpoint to the strained quiet. The violin sat abandoned on the chaise, a weapon no longer needed, its recent cries still echoing in the shadowed corners of the room.

Eventually, Silas took a step closer to Julia, his movements deliberate. "We are leaving," he said, his voice quiet but absolute, no room for argument. He didn't ask her. He simply stated it.

And Julia went.

She didn't look back at Alistair, though she felt him watching—intensely, coldly. His silence was not surrender; it was a deep, unsettling calculation. She knew that, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone. And still, she walked.

The corridor outside the music room was cooler, darker, a stark contrast to the oppressive warmth they had just left. The heavy atmosphere of the room clung to her skin like sweat after a fever. But this was real air, fresh and clean. And she breathed it in like it truly mattered, filling her lungs with freedom.

They didn't speak until they were several paces down the hall, until the music room door had closed with a soft click behind them, until the sound of their footsteps didn't echo back, giving away their presence.

Then Silas stopped abruptly and turned to her.

He didn't shout. He didn't question her choices with anger. His voice was low, laced with a potent mix of frustration and profound worry.

"What the hell did you think you were doing, Julia?" he asked, his voice tight. "Dining with him? Sitting there like nothing had happened? Letting Alistair speak to you like you were—" He stopped himself, a muscle ticking in his jaw, the unsaid accusation hanging heavily between them.

Julia, too shaken to retreat behind her usual sarcasm or defiant wit, felt her carefully constructed composure begin to unravel. The note on her pillow, Marian's face in the mirror, Alistair's chilling words—it all crashed down.

"I didn't expect it to escalate, Silas," she confessed, her voice thin, fragile. "I thought… I thought I could manage him. That I could endure a simple dinner, a performance of civility." She swallowed hard, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue, even if it was a partial truth. "I wanted to believe it was just a dinner. Just another performance."

But even as she said it, her voice broke slightly, a small, involuntary gasp. She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince—him, or herself. Her eyes, wide and luminous in the dim corridor, pleaded for understanding.

Silas stepped closer, his anger didn't cool, but it shifted. It aimed no longer at her, but at everything around them. The oppressive house. The manipulative man within it. The suffocating legacy. All of it.

"You cannot keep pretending you are unaffected, Julia," he said, his voice raw with a fierce protectiveness. "You cannot keep pretending Alistair doesn't scare you. That you aren't being drawn into something you don't understand, something far darker than you can comprehend."

His voice softened then, just barely, a tender caress in the echoing hall. "I saw your face, Julia," he murmured, his gaze searching hers, piercing through her carefully constructed defenses. "When Alistair spoke to you. I know what that expression means. It wasn't indifference. It was terror. And I wanted to bash his pretty face in." His voice was low, rough with the intensity of his emotion. "I wanted to tear him apart for putting that fear in your eyes."

Julia's reply was quiet, almost a whisper, the residual shock still vibrating through her. "It's complicated, Silas. He isn't just dangerous. He's… inevitable." She paused, searching for the right words, for a way to articulate the suffocating feeling that had plagued her since stepping foot in Blackwood Hall. "I feel like I'm standing in a river, Silas, trying not to drown. And Alistair… Alistair is the current pulling me down, steadily, relentlessly."

Silas moved again, closer still, until she could feel the warmth radiating from his body. His hand touched her arm—lightly at first, a feather-light brush, as if checking whether she'd flinch, whether she'd pull away.

She didn't.

His fingers tightened, a firm, reassuring grip that sent a jolt through her. "I won't let it happen," he vowed, his voice fierce, brimming with an unshakeable resolve. "Not again. Not here. You are not Marian, Julia, and you are not alone. Not matter how much this house, or Alistair, wants you to feel like you are."

And before she could answer—before she could even breathe, before the trembling that had started in her soul could fully manifest—he kissed her.

It wasn't tentative this time.

It was firm. Certain. A stake driven into the ground between her and everything else—between her and Alistair, between her and Marian's haunting presence, between her and the suffocating weight of Blackwood Hall. His hands cupped her face, careful but not hesitant, his thumbs brushing softly over her cheekbones, tilting her head slightly. The touch was exquisitely tender, yet undeniably possessive.

Julia's lips parted slightly, a soft gasp escaping, and she leaned into him without thinking, without hesitation. Her body, which had been a tight knot of anxiety all evening, finally began to unwind. A profound trembling began deep within her, spreading rapidly. Not from fear—but from the sheer, overwhelming release of holding herself together for far too long. The taste of him was clean, wild, utterly real.

His lips moved against hers with a growing intensity, coaxing a response she hadn't known she possessed. His breath mingled with hers, warm and minty. His fingers threaded into her hair, gently cupping the back of her head, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss. Her own hands, almost without conscious thought, rose to grip his forearms, feeling the hard line of muscle beneath his coat.

He groaned, a low, guttural sound, as if he too had been holding his breath for an eternity. He pressed his body closer, the lean strength of him a comforting shield against the lingering chill of the corridor. She could feel the steady beat of his heart against her chest, a strong, vibrant rhythm that anchored her in the moment.

When the kiss finally broke, slowly, reluctantly, their lips still tingling, she didn't speak.

Neither did he.

They just stood there, foreheads nearly touching, his hands still cupping her face, her hands still gripping his forearms. The flickering candlelight of the corridor painted long, dancing shadows around them like conspirators, shielding them in a cocoon of fragile intimacy. The air hummed with unspoken words, with the electric charge that now existed between them.

But they weren't alone.

Further down the hall, almost hidden in the folds of velvet shadow near a tall grandfather clock, a figure watched in silence.

Elsie.

Her young face was a mask, her eyes unreadable in the dim light. Her presence was still as stone, unmoving, unnoticed. But she had seen it all—the raw confrontation, the desperate kiss, the tangible relief that had washed over Julia.

And she said nothing.

Not yet.