The carriage ride back to the Blackwood estate was suffocatingly silent. It wasn't the comfortable quiet I sometimes shared with Darius in the late hours of his study, a silence filled with unspoken understanding. This was a heavy, charged void, thick with the ghosts of Kael's furious glare and the lingering warmth of Richard's hand on my arm.
Darius sat opposite me, a shadow carved from darkness and authority. He hadn't spoken a word since we left the party, but his silence was more demanding than any question. He watched me, not with anger or suspicion, but with a deep, unnerving focus, as if he were trying to see past the performance I had given and into the man beneath.
I stared out the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of gold and white. The silver coin felt like a lead weight in my pocket, a secret I wasn't sure I was allowed to keep.
