Page 36 of Reflections of Silence

“Tell me about Amy.”

He walked in silence for a few minutes, drawing me deeper into the gardens, along the hedgerow. My teeth chattered. I didn’t want to go back into the maze. Glancing over my shoulder, light framed the curtained windows of the house, warm and welcoming. Despite my need to escape its confines earlier in the day, all I wanted now was to be back within those four impenetrable walls.

At the entrance to the maze, Sebastian steered us to one side, through a grove of trees I hadn’t noticed in my haste before. The slim trees were planted in a circle. Moss covered the ground, squishing beneath my feet. He didn't stop in the clearing but instead led me through the other side, dropping his arm to clasp my hand.

We slipped between the close-knit, twisted trees and stepped out onto a wide ledge that ended in a little shoal looking out across the ocean. Water lapped softly in the muggy air, as tepid as a long-standing teacup, like I imagined from his bedroom. I glanced over my shoulder to see if I could pick his out, but foliage obscured my sight of the house.

When I turned back, he led me to a wide, rectangular slab of rock that rested to one side of the sandy space. His head inclined, he gestured for me to sit. I spread my skirts around me and waited. Sebastian paced before me, treading a worn path he seemed to know well.

“Amy—I know her as Anitta. It’s an older name.” He ran his hand over his head, smoothing loose strands away from his face that sprang back in a show of defiance. “She’s different. Not like me, older than Dolion. My gargoyle. She predates us all.”

I blinked. How many creatures of the night were there? But not all legends stayed hidden under the cover of darkness while innocents only dreamed of the magic that created them.

I frowned. “But she was in the sunlight. On the ship. And she—she didn’t sleep. Not like you, when you…you know, in the morning…” I waved a feeble hand.

“She is not vampyre, Gella.”

It was the first time he had said that word to me, and imparting the knowledge, voicing it—it was an offering of trust.

I’ll never ask you to leave, Gella. You have my promise.

And I’ll never run from you.

The two-way conversation ran over my words. I considered for a moment.

“What is she? She’s lived all these years, my God, centuries—” I paused as he winced. “What is it?”

“Please refrain from mentioning Him, love.”

“Oh.” I quietened. “Do—should I not cross myself, then?”

He laughed. “No, love. Gestures like that hold no power whatsoever. His name, however, regardless of form, does.”

“You avoided my question.” My mind caught up with me. I raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Again.”

“I’m getting good at that,” he mused, studying the stars.

“Yes.” I jabbed him again, though it wasn’t a satisfying barb without earning a reaction. “You are.”

Sebastian sighed, slowing his pace. “She is—I don’t know what she is, only who. She found me when I was…killed. Alive. How ever you wish to say it.” He laughed, a hollow thing that sent shivers across my flesh.

I crossed my arms tightly. Chill night air seeped through my dress. He glanced down at me and slipped out of his coat, laying it around my shoulders. For the first time, I recognized that he had a scent. Something fresh—like dew on a frosted morning, mixed with the earthy undertones of charcoal and smoke.

“When were you…” I bit my lip, unsure if it was polite to ask someone when they were killed.

Sebastian laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “When did I die?” The laughter inside him held for a moment before it crashed, sinking into something dark, suppressed deep, and mirrored in his eyes. “Four hundred years ago. She was there when my body changed, like I was flayed from the inside out.”

I stifled a gasp behind my hand. “The portrait.”

He didn’t look at me this time. “Yes. The portrait. She was there. Watched me from the inside.”

Reveled in it.

His silent confession imparted the horror he didn’t dare to say aloud.

“Like we talk? Inside my head?”

“You’re inside mine, too, Gella,” he murmured.

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