Page 64 of Reflections of Silence

I blinked.

“What did you do?”

“I shut her out. I think. I’ve tried to mirror the—what is it you say about my presence?— a void.”

“When she goes into my head, she will encounter a—a wall?” My brow furrowed.

I tried to work out what he meant, but the concept of seeing my own mind from someone else’s point of view appeared to be beyond me.

Sebastian brushed his fingers over the lines forming there, smoothing them. “She won’t be able to find your mind at all, assuming I’ve done it right. You won’t be…visible to her at all.”

“Can you still speak to me? Like you have been?”

You mean, in here?

A shiver ran through me at his presence there, like it had been between us, before. Not an intrusion, but safe, and…all him.Sebastian.My cheeks heated as I smiled shyly. Pain flared across my throat again, taking any thoughts of time together with it.

“I don’t want to be like that. Like…her.”

You mean like me.

Pure pain laced his voice, ricocheting through my head, but neither of us bothered to deny the truth of the statement, the disquiet that rose in my throat as a silent scream I trapped beneath layer after layer of love and hurt and all the things we were together, who we had become.

Because this mortal life was all I could give him. It would have to be enough, because it was all I had.

Then, he would wander on into an unknown destination alone. I wouldn’t-couldnotrisk- becoming like her. Nothing like her. I’d seen what the curse of immortality did to a mind, and I did not want its kiss, or its temptation.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my vision blurring before me.

“No, Gella. It is I who am sorry. For everything. But I, too, am selfish for not being sorry to drag you here and stealing the years of your mortal life to share with you.”

Tenderly reclining me back onto my pillow, he stared into my eyes for a moment, then strode to my door. I blinked back tears at his sudden exit, but voices murmured from the hall. He returned swiftly, sliding his arms around me, pulling me into his strength.

Rest, Gella. Let me care for the horrors I’ve inflicted on you.

I blinked, wanting to tell him that they weren’t his horrors, that none of this was his fault at all, but exhaustion threw a blanket over me, and I sank into the familiar void of him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

GISELLA

In the space of a few short weeks, the austere, though luxurious, interior of Sebastian’s castle—I refused to call it anything else now—transformed into something magical. The townspeople talked about nothing else, according to bavardage my maid peddled from downstairs.

Outside, everything appeared perfect. Excitement carried on the wind, and even Granny Smythe’s wolf-men acknowledged the event.

On the inside, panic reigned. Staff flurried about the house sorting decorations and polishing silver after weeks of planning. Sebastian brought what must have been centuries worth of the royal service collection with him when he’d left France. Dresses were laid out, altered and restyled. Minette met any ladies who considered themselves seamstresses or who possessed any such skills in the town, and collected as many bolts of fabric as possible.

The trading post was alit with the news of a ball at the house, and no one was permitted to enter except for the staff.The ballroom was scrubbed until the black and white tiles I had encountered on my first day in Sebastian’s home that he imported from France, along with the rest of his belongings, glowed with the shimmering reflection of the chandelier above, and the silver vines glinted in the reflected crystalline light.

Minette laid out the gown she’d stitched for me, and I marveled at her talents. The dress consisted of two flowing swathes of a translucent blue material that faded to cream at the bottom. A deep vee mirrored both back and front, with a gathered waist that flowed to the floor in a sweeping bell shape.

A matching mask of deep blue lace covered my eyes, fading to the same cream as the dress as it descended to my cheeks. She’d designed a thin choker of the same, deep blue to cover the lines still visible around my throat from my torture, and silver cuffs with bows draped my wrists.

“You’ve done…an incredible job, Minette.” I twirled in place, a little giddy at the finery.

Minette bobbed a courtesy, a blush rising in her cheeks. She straightened the blue feathers she’d intertwined through my hair, which tumbled around them in a confection of curls laced with a length of silver ribbon.

Her own uniform for the evening had been altered, as had all the staff’s. Black lace edges were applied to all their service wear, with velvet as the distinguishing feature on Charleton’s coat. Each wore a prominent black mask across their eyes in the shape of thefleur-de-lys.

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