Page 23

Kieran

The scent of garlic, basil, and something unmistakably comforting curled through the air like incense.

I sat at the table, a plate of lasagna steaming in front of me, a generous slab of garlic bread on the side.

My second real homemade dinner in over two centuries, and it tasted like something out of a dream.

Creamy, savory, rich—Dahlia’s doing. Of course.

She moved around the table, serving seconds, checking on drinks, fussing like she didn’t just rebuild my faith in the modern age with cheese and butter.

And then she stopped in front of Silas.

He was still tied to the kitchen chair, wrists secured and ankles bound to the legs—Thea’s work, which I begrudgingly had to admire. But he'd been let off the gag, and Henry, ever the gentleman, insisted he be allowed a plate “so long as he doesn’t try to hex anyone with a spoon.”

He didn’t get a fork, obviously.

Which meant Dahlia—sweet, maddening, kind Dahlia—sat beside him and began to feed him. Bite by bite. Patiently. Like he wasn’t the reason my soul had been locked in a locket for two centuries.

“Careful, it’s still hot,” she murmured, blowing on a forkful before holding it to his mouth.

Silas, the bastard, leaned forward obediently, eyes closed like he was savoring the moment, like he hadn’t burned our entire life to ash.

I gripped my fork a little too tightly.

He chewed. Smiled faintly. Nodded in approval. “That’s incredible,” he said, like he had any right to taste it. “You’re very talented, Miss Moore.”

Dahlia blushed.

And something deep and dark in me said absolutely not .

I reached for my water with one hand. With the other, I let a single, almost imperceptible thread of shadow slink across the floor beneath the table—thin as silk, dark as pitch.

It coiled up the leg of Silas’s chair.

Slipped beneath the plate balanced on his lap.

And with the barest nudge—

The lasagna tipped.

Right into his lap.

Silas yelped.

Dahlia jumped. “Oh! Oh no—did it spill? It’s hot, I’m so sorry—”

“I—it’s—ah, it’s fine,” he stammered, lifting his bound hands awkwardly as steam rose from his thighs. “Just… very warm.”

“Oh God, hang on—” She scrambled for napkins, nearly knocking over her glass. “Don’t move. I mean—well, you can’t, but—still—”

Henry chuckled behind his cup. “That’s what he gets for betraying his brother. Karma’s a spicy meatball.”

I took a long sip of my water, the corners of my mouth twitching. “Shame about that plate. Gravity’s a cruel mistress.”

Thea raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t say a word. Her eyes flicked to the shadows pooled around my chair and then back to my face. Her mouth twitched. She looked back down at her plate.

Silas looked directly at me—expression unreadable, mouth tight, pride slightly burned along with his thigh.

I raised my brows and offered him a cool smile.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “There’s plenty more.”

He didn’t answer.

But his next bite was cautious. And not just because of the temperature.