Page 107 of Salem’s Rise

My stomach drops. A laugh escapes me, thin and incredulous.

“You were with them?” The room tilts into an upside-down world I don’t understand. “They’re my enemies, Silas. Rowan almost got me executed at Veil Night. Van has tried to kill me in every single trial of The Rites.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s… complicated.”

“Explain it to me.”

Silas straightens, something in him seeming to lock into place. Whatever vulnerability I first saw when he opened the door is gone, replaced by the guarded, protected version of him I know all too well.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says. “I’ve known them my entire life. We don’t always agree—I don’t even like them half the time—but they’re Veil. There are times we still have to work together. Things you don’t yet know.”

“Of course, how could I possibly understand the Veil? I’m just some pathetic outsider, heir to a family that was eliminated,” I say bitterly. “Is that it?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Van knew about us… at Blackthorn Manor.”

His body goes rigid.

“How do you mean?”

“How do you think I mean?” I snap, heat rising to my face. “The gala, Silas. He knew what happened. That you and I—that we—” I can’t finish the sentence. It’s too humiliating that we had sex, and he apparently told all his asshole friends. “Why would you do that?”

Nausea twists in my stomach. I feel sick at his betrayal.

“I never said a word to Van,” he says, looking genuinely stricken. “Rowan must’ve told him, that bastard.”

“Why would you tell Rowan at all?”

The room falls quiet except for the ticking radiator. Then Silas turns fully toward me. “Because I wanted him to stay away from you. I told him you were mine,” he says, and something raw and possessive burns in his dark eyes. “That’s why I asked you to come here. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Silas—”

“Please.”

The word stops me.

He hesitates, as though gathering himself for whatever comes next. He looks terrified. Not of Van or the Veil or the final trial of The Rites, but of what he is about to say to me.

“What happened at Blackthorn Manor didn’t mean nothing to me. It meant everything.” The words come out strangely vulnerable, stripped of all his usual arrogance and bravado. He cannot quite meet my eyes as he continues. “My entire life, Lucien taught me that caring about someone only gives the Veil a weapon against you. That attachment makes you weak and anything you love can be used against you.” His fingers curl against his palm, then release. “I believed him. I thought if I stayed detached, if I never needed anyone, there would be nothing anyone could take from me.” Finally, he makes himself look at me. “Then you showed up.”

Every instinct I have screams at me not to listen, but the sincerity in his face is almost unbearable.

“I know I haven’t been good to you,” he continues. “In the beginning, I was unkind. I treated you like a problem I could solve. You didn’t deserve that.” There’s no defense in his expression now, only regret. “But I can’t keep pretending anymore. I care about you, Mercer. Fuck, I care about you more than I ever meant to. More than I thought I ever could care about anyone.” A small, almost self-conscious smile appears, so unlike Silas that I hardly recognize him. “I know you don’t trust me. I’m not sure I’ve given you a single reason to. But I keep hoping, foolishly, that you’ll let me try to earn it, anyway.”

He draws in a shaky breath, looking at me with a fragile kind of hope in his eyes.

“Do you think—” He stops, starts again. For the first time since I’ve met him, Silas Blackhollow looks genuinely afraid of an answer. “Do you think you could ever feel about me the way I feel about you?”

For one suspended second, I see the version of this night that was supposed to happen. I see myself arriving, untouched, hearing these words without Van’s blood on my hands or Van’s sick and twisted words in my head. I see myself saying yes to Silas and crossing the distance between us, finally giving him the part of me I’ve been trying desperately not to admit was already his.

Then the image shatters completely.

“Oh my God.” I let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh. “You must think I’m the biggest fucking idiot in the world.”

Silas flinches. He can only stare at me, stunned into silence.

“You seriously think I’d fall for that? As if I’d really believe that now, after all your lies, you’re finally being honest for once?”