Morning came without warmth. The rain had ceased, but the air remained heavy with the scent of wet stone and regret. Clouds drifted low over Mickelson Manor, shrouding the estate in a pale, uneasy light.
Servants moved through the corridors with bowed heads, whispering in careful tones. Something dreadful had happened — that much everyone knew — yet no one dared speak the words aloud.
Behind the manor's closed doors, silence had become its own kind of punishment.
Hakeem had not slept. He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the dying embers in the hearth. His coat was still damp from the night before; his hands trembled slightly as though the cold had settled deep into his bones.
The door to his chamber was locked from the outside. Guards stood in the hall, keeping watch not as protectors but as wardens. The son of the house, treated now as its captive.
He did not know whether Hyacinth had escaped or been caught. The uncertainty gnawed at him, each passing moment tightening the coil of fear in his chest.
When at last the key turned in the lock, Hakeem rose quickly — but the person who entered was not his father.
It was Selene.
She slipped inside and shut the door softly behind her. Her gown was wrinkled, her hair still unpinned, and her eyes swollen from sleepless tears. She looked less like a lady of noble birth and more like a ghost wandering her own home.
"Hakeem…" Her voice trembled.
He didn't move. "Did she make it?"
"I don't know," Selene admitted. "The guards searched through the night. Father hasn't spoken to anyone since he came in from the storm. He locked himself in his study before dawn."
Hakeem turned away, jaw tight. "Then she's gone — one way or another."
Selene crossed the room, hesitated, and then knelt beside him. "You did what you thought was right."
"I did what I wanted," he said bitterly. "And because of that, she might be dead or hunted. You were right — I've doomed her."
Selene shook her head. "You were brave, Hakeem. You fought for something true. Maybe she's the lucky one now — free of all this."
He looked at her, really looked at her. The candlelight flickered across her face, showing how pale she'd become, how her spirit seemed to flicker like a dying flame.
"When is your wedding?" he asked quietly.
"Next week."
"And you'll go through with it?"
Her lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Do I have a choice? I am my mother's daughter. We don't run, we endure."
He took her hand — the same hand that had once guided him across the garden paths when they were children, before titles and expectations had divided them into roles instead of siblings.
"Selene," he said, voice low, "when I get out of here, I'll find a way to change this. I'll burn it all down if I have to — the rules, the duty, the fear. All of it."
Selene's eyes glistened, her fingers tightening around his. "Promise me you'll still believe that, even when it costs you more than you think you can bear."
"I promise."
For a moment, they sat together in the quiet — two souls chained by blood, bound by duty, yet desperate for something that resembled life.
Then came the sound of heels in the corridor — sharp, deliberate, unmistakable. The Duchess.
Selene stood quickly. "She can't see me here. I'll come back when I can."
As she reached the door, Hakeem said softly, "Selene."
She turned.
"If you ever see Hyacinth again… tell her I never stopped trying."
Her throat tightened. "If I ever see her again, I'll tell her everything."
She slipped out just as the Duchess's shadow passed across the door. The lock clicked again, sealing Hakeem back into silence.
He sank onto the bed, staring at the gray light filtering through the rain-streaked window. Outside, the estate stirred to life — horses being led from the stables, servants tending to the aftermath of the storm, the world continuing as if nothing had happened.
But something had happened. Something irreversible.
He thought of Hyacinth's face in the lantern light, of her trembling hands on the gate latch, of her whisper: "You'll lose everything."
Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he already had.
A gust of wind rattled the windowpane, and Hakeem rose slowly, pressing his palm against the cold glass. Beyond the fields, the horizon was beginning to clear — faint streaks of sunlight pushing through the clouds.
He wondered if she was somewhere beneath that same sky, free but frightened, remembering him as he remembered her.
For the first time since the night before, he allowed himself to hope.
He whispered into the emptiness, "Be safe, Hyacinth. Be safe."
The wind carried the words away.
And in that moment, for all his noble blood and wealth, Hakeem Mickelson had never felt poorer — or more human.