Page 43 of Nothing to Hide
The cloaked keeper standing in the center reaches out with a familiar crimson envelope, holding it out to us. My fingertips brush the paper, accepting their offer, knowing what this means for the three of us. The five of them disappear through one of the narrow alcoves one by one until only Leo, Mia, and I are left standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“So, we’re really doing this? Out in the open? No matter what?” Mia asks hesitantly, as if she’s still unsure about the three of us. I step into her space, Leo crowding her, our arms wrapping tightly around each other’s waists. My forehead dips toward theirs, our breaths mingling.
“We’re really doing this. No more holding back. There’s nothing to hide anymore. It’s us against the world.”
Because love is all that matters.
I open the envelope and read:
Welcome to Crimson Veil.
You’ve heard the whispers, and now it’s time you know the truth. Crimson Veil, and the institution that cloaks it, was not merely founded, it was conjured into existence by the five names deeply rooted in the marrow of the grounds here. Abel Thorne, Edmund Mortwood, Francis Harrow, Isabel Ashcroft, and Cecelia Grimsley. They did not gather for prestige, nor for pursuit of knowledge, but to guard something the world has long tried to extinguish and has never fully understood.
Love.
Not the fragile, fleeting kind that’s paraded around in daylight, but something much older, truer. A love bound in promises, sealed in shadows, and preserved at a cost few would be willing to pay.
When the world cast them out, they carved a sanctuary from silence and stone, one that has prevailed by devotion, secrecy, and an unyielding loyalty to each other.
Now, it’s before you. What was once theirs to protect is no longer theirs alone.
It is yours.
