The morning dawned colorless.
Snow had fallen all night, covering the garden in almost perfect silence.
Inside the Ashbourne house, everything seemed frozen, even time itself.
The ticking of the clock echoed like a cruel reminder that life went on, despite everything.
Sylus slowly descended the stairs.
Each step weighed heavily on him.
The floorboards creaked as if to protest his presence.
He hadn't slept a wink.
Every time he tried, he saw Althea's gaze from the night before, a gaze he would never forget.
The kitchen was bathed in a white light, almost painful.
Althéa was already there, sitting in front of a half-empty cup of tea.
Her hair fell messily over her shoulders, and her face, usually so lively, seemed dull.
She didn't look up when he entered.
Not a word.
Not a gesture.
He stood there for a few seconds, uncertain.
Then he finally said, in a low, almost broken voice:
"You haven't slept."
"No," she replied simply.
Her voice was flat, without inflection, as if she were talking about something unimportant.
Sylus approached, but each step seemed to widen the distance between them.
He sat down across from her and placed his hands on the table.
His fingers trembled slightly.
"Althea, I..."
"No, she cut him off without looking at him.
No ''I.'' No excuses."
She finally looked up, and her gaze pierced him.
"What do you want us to do now?
Pretend?"
Sylus took a slow breath.
"I didn't want you to find out like this."
"How did you want me to find out, exactly?
From a newspaper article? From a rumor?"
Her voice broke slightly.
But she continued:
"You know what's worst?
It's that I watched you two for weeks.
And I didn't see anything. Nothing."
She clutched the cup between her fingers, as if she wanted to hold on to it to keep from falling apart.
"Catarina... she was my best friend."
The name seemed to cut through the room like a knife.
Sylus looked down.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
She leaned forward slightly, her voice lower, more tremulous.
"You don't know what it feels,
like to realize that the two people you loved most in the world,
lied to you."
He wanted to speak, but the words stuck in his throat.
Every sentence he could have uttered sounded false even before it came out.
Althea stood up, pushing her chair back abruptly.
"You say you didn't want me to suffer.
But you did exactly the opposite."
She paused in the doorway.
Her voice grew lower, heavier still:
"You always told me that after Mom,
you could never love again."
She slowly turned her head toward him.
"You lied to me about that too."
Silence fell again, so thick you could hear it breathing.
Sylus remained alone at the table, his hands clasped around his still-warm cup.
Outside, a crow flew by, black against the white sky.
Everything in him wanted to talk, to explain, to make amends.
But he knew there was nothing left to say.
When the front door slammed shut a moment later, the sound echoed throughout the house.
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, he thought he heard the piano, a distant echo, a memory he could no longer bury.
And in this house too big for a single consciousness, he understood that silence did not only punish those who remained.
It punished above all those who had loved.