Evelyne didn’t care. She needed out of this room, out of this house, out of the suffocating deception that threatened to swallow her whole.
She only turned toward the door and said, “I need to run.”
Seraphine didn’t try to stop her. Instead, she reached for Evelyne’s cloak, draping it over her shoulders with a silent nod. Evelyne grasped the fabric, her fingers curling into the wool, then turned and fled into thestorm.
Chapter 17
The cold hit her instantly, the wind howling through the trees as rain lashed against her skin. She welcomed the storm’s bite, letting the air numb the raw wound of betrayal before it could swallow her whole.
She ran.
The mud sucked at her boots, threatening to pull her down, but she pushed forward, her breath ragged, her legs burning. Her hair whipped against her damp cheeks, strands sticking to her skin as she forced herself to go faster, harder. She needed to outrun the thoughts clawing at her mind, the cruel laughter she imagined spilling from Callista’s lips, the echo of Alaric’s voice saying, 'I didn’t want it to be like this.'
Liar.
The word burned through her like fire. She gritted her teeth and sprinted harder, her pulse thundering in her ears.
She had been so naive to believe that one kiss could change everything. To think that the quiet, comforting conversations they had shared meant as much to him as they had to her. That the way he’d held her, the way his lips had lingered against hers, had been anything more than a fleeting moment for him while it had unraveled her entire world.
She could already picture Callista spreading the truth, delighting in the whispers that would soon follow Evelyne wherever she went.Poor Evelyne, thinking he wanted her. Thinking she was actually chosen.
Rainsoaked through her clothes, and mud splattered her legs and arms, but she didn’t stop. She wouldn’t go near the woods—not at this hour, not when the darkness there felt far too much like the one threatening to swallow her. Instead, she stayed within the hidden paths of the estate, running until her legs threatened to give out beneath her.
An hour passed before she staggered back toward the manor, her body trembling with exhaustion. She tore off her mud-caked boots at the back entrance and moved on instinct, her steps carrying her to the only place she could think of—the library.
She just needed a moment. A quiet space to breathe. But when she stepped into the room, she stilled.
Cillian sat in the far corner, his back to the window, a book in his hands. But he wasn’t reading. He had been, perhaps, but now his gaze was fixed on her. Evelyne’s stomach twisted—not with embarrassment, not with shame, but with something far worse.
Fear.
His face was ghostly pale, his skin almost gray in the dim candlelight. His forehead was bandaged just above his eyebrow. And his eyes—his eyes were black as ink.
The book slipped from his fingers, thudding against the table, but he didn’t notice. He looked lost. Hollow.
Evelyne’s heartbeat, which had been so wild with rage moments ago, now pounded for an entirely different reason.
“Cillian?” Her voice was barely a whisper, but it may as well have been a scream in the stillness of the library.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t move.
All the anger from the night, the hurt, the ache of it—none of it mattered anymore.
Something was verywrong.
Evelyne stepped forward cautiously, her heart hammering against her ribs. Her drenched clothes clung to her, rainwater dripping from the ends of her hair as she tucked a strand behind her ear with unsteady fingers. She carefully lowered herself into the chair across from him.
“Cillian. Look at me.”
He did. But the moment his gaze locked onto hers, she regretted asking. Once warm and full of mischief and life, his eyes were nothing but blackened voids, swallowing all light and humanity. A slow, cruel smile curled his lips, twisting his face into something unrecognizable. He tilted his head, a predator studying his prey.
“Oh, Evelyne,” he murmured, voice dripping with mockery. “No need to look so sad.”
Horror washed over her like a freezing tide. This was not her brother.
“Always feeling sorry for me,” he continued, his smile widening, warping. His voice had shifted, deepened into something unnatural. “Everyone in this family is always pitying poor, sick Cillian.”
Then he moved, shoving back his chair as he stood, towering over her. Evelyne flinched, her hands trembling against the tabletop.
