Page 73 of Salem’s Rise

“Then who was it?”

“No one was supposed to touch you,” he says, his mouth pulling tight, the words clipped, almost angry. “The plan was to frighten you. Nothing more. You were meant to believe Salem’s Fall was dangerous and leave.”

“So you admit it was your idea?”

His eyes meet mine without hesitation. “Yes.”

The admission settles between us.

“So let me get this straight,” I say slowly. “You had me drugged. Dragged into the woods. Bound. Threatened. Cut. Hit.” I give him a pointed look. “But I should be comforted because you intended it to be a pleasant kidnapping?”

“I did not say you should be comforted, only that I never intended for you to be hurt,” he says. “Van acted without permission. He enjoys fear and pain. Once you fought back, he stopped seeing you as a warning and started seeing you as sport. He crossed a line.” Something almost like remorse flickers across his face. “I… do regret I didn’t stop it in time.”

The memory rearranges itself, and I see it again with fresh eyes, imagining Silas as something other than the villain for once.

The men in the woods arguing. The one in the black quilted jacket ordering the one with the knife to back off. The blow to my head. Darkness. Someone carrying me. Brushing the hair from my face in the infirmary, pleading with me to leave. Then helping me to my room.

“It was you,” I say, finally putting it together. “You told Van to stop. You’re the one who took me to the infirmary. You took me home.”

“Yes.”

“But I thought Rowan⁠—”

“Rowan went straight from the woods to his dinner date.” He cuts me off, disgust entering his voice. “He certainly did not carry you all the way across campus and wait for hours in the infirmary until the nurse confirmed you could leave. He did not then help you home, tuck you into bed, and watch you all night to make sure you were all right.”

This new version of that night’s events leaves me strangely off-balance.

“You did all that?” I ask. “But then why did you leave without telling me?”

“You would have reacted badly if you woke and found me in your bedroom.”

Well… he had a point there.

Still, none of that means he’s a good guy. I can’t make a bargain with someone like him. I need to tell him to leave. I know I need to.

I’m just not sure I want to.

“Why did you lie about knowing Josh?”

I study the dark circles beneath his eyes, the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he holds himself as if bracing for a blow he’s already decided he deserves. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.

“I was trying to keep you from making the same mistakes.”

“What mistakes?”

“Josh and I were friends, that part is true. I liked him. Respected him.” Silas moves closer, not enough to threaten, but enough for me to see how much he’s affected by this conversation. “But then he became obsessed with the Veil. Every puzzle led to another question, every answer convincing him there was something deeper. I told him to stop digging. I tried to keep him from the Veil and its ceremonies.”

“Did Lucien hurt him? Was it one of the other Houses?”

Silas’s body goes rigid. “I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“That he went to Veil Night after I explicitly warned him not to.” His eyes settle on mine, and the look he gives me says it all. He tried to stop my brother, who didn’t listen, same as he tried to stop me. “Josh never came back after that night.”

“And all this time, you never looked for him?”

His head snaps toward me. “Do not insult me,” he says, the force of his indignation silencing me. “Of course I looked. I asked questions I was not permitted to ask. I searched places you have never heard of. I nearly convinced Lucien I was disloyal to him and the Veil before I learned enough to understand that no one ever intended to give me an answer.”