In the Midnight Garden by Holly Anne

Author:Holly Anne [Anne, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2026-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Soft bubbling of the pot mixed in with the harshness of tubes clinking together as Silas ground the mortar.

“There,” he muttered. “That should be the last of it.”

I slinked against the wall, peering into the laboratory. It was quaint, with a charm to it, smaller than the other rooms in the east wing. Books were stacked high upon a large oak table and papers scattered about, similar to Silas’s desk. Test tubes, herbs, beakers, and other scientific materials intermingled with the open books, some filled with liquids of colors mirroring the grand stained glass window looming behind him. Plants lined the back walls of various species I often saw at Ayla’s cottage clustered around the window.

Within the grand room, a fire crackled from the fireplace, burning bright and hot, illuminating the scene before me. Silas poured liquid after liquid, crushing powders and mixing them into a sweet red fluid. Silas turned behind him to stroke the leaves of lavender and pluck several berries from the plant. He placed them into the mortar, pressing them into a fine juice, slipping it into the liquid and turning it a shade darker than blood.

What was Silas doing in possession of nightingale berries?

I shivered.

I leaned in close, staying within the shadows. Watching as Silas continued to add to the pot propped up by a small inlet flame that burned high against the ceramic. He lifted his head toward the door, yellow eyes shining toward the very spot in which I hid. I whipped my head away from view and held my breath, waiting to the sound of pounding heartbeats. I ventured a single glance to the crack of the door. Silas had moved. He hovered over the fire of the mantle with the cup of dark crimson.

An immortal’s somber gaze peered down upon that cup filled with death or life, the gambling of his fare. Silas stretched an arm to the mantle, resting it against the sweeping wood carving downcast to the cup. His knuckles turned white against the stain, and for a moment, I thought it would crack.

Silas raised the glass, toasting to the haunted or the damned or whatever God a creature such as him has to pray to. In one fell swoop, he downed the contents as it trickled along the corner of his mouth in a sickly red hue.

The cracking of the fireplace answered the space in its eerie silence, becoming nothing then everything. Silas coughed, and blood spurted from his lips and onto the carpet. It seeped from his mouth and eyes, a gruesome sight, his crumpled form silently moving with each rupture. Eternity passed, and Silas convulsed upon the ground on all four legs until he collapsed onto the dark hardwood, body twitching with a pool of blood forming under his head.

I placed a hand to my mouth, muffling the scream that built inside my chest. Shock rooted me to the spot as I watched the last breath disappear into the air of the castle walls. Silas lips muttered softly a prayer in a language I recognized but did not know the words to.

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