Page 90 of Salem’s Rise

“And Josh’s fellowship?” My pulse is beating too quickly now. “You were trying to help him too, then?”

Lucien looks down for a moment, blinking hard.

“I had hoped that would turn out differently.”

“What does that mean?”

His face closes with practiced grace. “Only that your brother was extraordinary and deserved every opportunity the Blackhollow Foundation could provide.”

I wonder if this is my chance to finally ask him about Josh. Until now, I’d never considered Lucien someone I could speak to freely about my brother, but this conversation has changed everything.

“Mr. Blackhollow⁠—”

He sets his glass down.

“Be strong, Jacqueline. It will all be over soon,” he says softly. “Stay close to Silas. He’ll protect you.” He looks away, suddenly distracted by something on the other side of the room. The shift is so abrupt, it feels deliberate. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must attend to my guests.” His smile returns, elegant and impenetrable. “Please enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Within seconds, he is absorbed by the room again, greeting donors, laughing with a professor, accepting the governor’s hand as though he has not just detonated everything I thought I understood about my family.

My mother knew Lucien Blackhollow.

My father knew him too.

Silas returns moments later while I’m still standing in a daze, unable to fully comprehend everything that just transpired. He notices my expression and grabs my hand, worry evident on his face.

“Are you all right?” he asks. “What did my uncle say to you?”

“We need to talk—in private.”

He doesn’t argue, just guides me through a side corridor and up the grand staircase, away from the music and voices. We pass rows of closed doors and seemingly endless corridors before arriving at his bedroom at the end of the west wing.

I expect something severe and cold. Instead, the room feels lived in, almost cozy. Dark wood, gray walls, an enormous rug faded at the edges. Books fill two entire shelves and spill onto the desk beneath the window. Some are histories and legal texts. Others surprise me—crime novels, battered fantasy paperbacks, poetry, and at least three romances shoved together on a lower shelf as though he hopes no one will notice them.

There are photographs too.

Silas as a child with his parents. A younger Lucien with one arm around his brother and Silas in the middle. Another of Silas at perhaps sixteen, glaring at the camera while his mother laughs beside him.

The room feels like it belongs to a totally different person than the one I know.

“Tell me what happened,” Silas says, closing the door behind us.

I turn on him. “You said if we worked together, there would be no more secrets.”

“No.” His expression tightens. “I agreed no deliberate omissions regarding immediate threats in The Rites. I have kept that promise.”

“Lucien knew my mother and my father.” I step closer. “They were good friends.”

Silas becomes unnaturally still.

There it is. Exactly as I’d expected.

“You knew,” I whisper.

“Jack—”

The hurt hardens into anger. “Tell me the truth now, or this—whatever this is between us—is over.”

His eyes flick briefly toward the closed door. Then he releases a long breath and drags one hand through his hair.