Silas:
The world is too bright today.
Ashwyck’s stones seem less haunted under the noon sun, but that doesn’t soothe me. If anything, it unsettles. The light feels borrowed, temporary, as though the shadows are holding their breath, waiting for nightfall to reclaim what belongs to them.
I am one of those shadows.
Her voice finds me before I mean to let it. Light laughter, hesitant, uncertain, like bells carried on the wind. I had slipped into the walls to watch, restless, drawn without thought. That’s when I hear it—her professor calling off the second class of the day. Obligations postponed, the perfect chance for me to do what I’ve been thinking of since the moment I first touched her hand.
Teach her.
Or perhaps damn her.
I step from the stone, bleeding out of the wall like mist.
