The Crew estate looked like something pulled directly from a magazine spread, the kind Silveria used to flip through as a girl, imagining lives so far removed from her own that they might as well have belonged to fictional characters in a story she'd never actually get to live. Tall iron gates swung open automatically as the car approached, silent on well-oiled hinges. A driveway curved gracefully through gardens so perfectly maintained they looked almost artificial, hedges trimmed into exact, deliberate geometric shapes, flowerbeds bursting with color despite the season having no particular reason to produce such abundance. By the time the car finally rolled to a smooth stop in front of the main entrance, Silveria had entirely lost count of the windows lining the enormous stone façade stretching up above her.
A man in a crisp black suit was already waiting at the door when she stepped carefully out of the car, moving on legs that still felt unsteady beneath her from the whole terrifying morning. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, silver threading neatly through his dark hair at the temples, his posture so perfectly straight it seemed as though he had been standing in that exact spot for his entire life, patiently waiting for her arrival specifically, and no one else's.
"Mrs. Crew," he said, bowing his head slightly in greeting. "Welcome home. I'm Benson. I manage the household."
Silveria didn't quite know what to say to that. Mrs. Crew. The name still didn't feel like it properly belonged to her at all. It felt like a costume someone else had forced her into, the same way they'd forced her bodily into the ill-fitting dress that very morning, something borrowed and entirely wrong that she was nonetheless expected to wear regardless of how uncomfortable it made her feel.
"Thank you," she managed finally, her voice coming out considerably smaller than she had intended.
A woman stepped up beside Benson then, younger than him by a fair margin, with warm brown eyes and a gentle, genuine smile that seemed to come from somewhere real rather than simple professional politeness. "I'm Rosa. I'll be looking after your rooms, and anything else you might happen to need during your time here. If you're ever hungry, or tired, or simply want someone to talk to, please, come and find me directly."
Something about the softness in Rosa's voice made Silveria's throat tighten unexpectedly, an ache rising quickly behind her eyes. It was the very first genuinely kind thing anyone had said to her since the entire nightmare of the morning had first begun to unfold.
"Thank you, Rosa," Silveria said, meaning it considerably more than the simple words alone could properly convey.
Benson led her inside then, through a set of enormous double doors that opened into an entrance hall so vast it echoed faintly with every single footstep. The house was even larger on the inside than it had appeared from the driveway, hallway branching endlessly into further hallway, room after room stretching out in every possible direction, more space contained within these walls than Silveria's entire childhood home could have held three times over and still had room remaining.
"Is Mr. Crew here currently?" she asked, trying hard to keep the tremor properly out of her voice as they walked together deeper into the house.
"He's presently occupied with a meeting," Benson said smoothly, giving absolutely nothing away in his carefully neutral expression. "He requested that you be settled into your room first, before any formal introductions properly take place between the two of you."
"My room," Silveria repeated slowly, turning the words over in her mind. "Not... ours?"
Benson's expression didn't shift even slightly, but something in the careful, deliberate way he avoided answering the question directly told her considerably more than words ever could have managed to. "You'll have your own dedicated space within the house," he said simply. "Mr. Crew maintains an entirely separate wing for himself."
That should have felt like a genuine relief, and in some small, complicated way, it actually did. But mostly it simply confirmed something Silveria had already begun to suspect the moment Felix had explained the arrangement to her during the long car ride here. This wasn't a marriage in any real, meaningful sense of that particular word. It was purely an arrangement, a cold business transaction with her standing in as the necessary legal paperwork, and she was, quite simply, a piece being carefully moved into position on a board she had never once agreed to play upon.
Rosa showed her next to a bedroom larger than any single room Silveria had ever slept in during her entire eighteen years of life. A closet stood open along one wall, already fully stocked with beautiful clothes that weren't hers, price tags still visibly attached to several of them. A bathroom gleamed with far more mirrors than she genuinely knew what to properly do with, marble countertops stretching from one wall entirely to the other. Everything in the room was beautiful, clearly expensive, obviously carefully chosen by someone with considerable taste and an equally considerable budget. None of it, not a single piece, actually belonged to her in any meaningful sense.
"I'll bring you something proper to eat," Rosa said gently, noticing the way Silveria had gone entirely still and silent in the middle of the enormous, overwhelming room. "You look like you haven't managed to eat anything at all today."
"I haven't," Silveria admitted, the words catching slightly and painfully in her throat.
"Sit down, dear. I'll be right back for you."
Alone finally, Silveria sank slowly onto the edge of the massive bed and let herself properly shake, the trembling she had been carefully holding back all morning finally breaking loose entirely now that no one remained to witness it. Her hands trembled from the wedding itself, from the endless silent car ride, from the sheer overwhelming size of everything currently surrounding her. She thought about Lilibeth, somewhere out there now in the wider world, free and entirely unburdened, likely not sparing a single thought for the younger sister she had left behind to clean up the considerable mess of her sudden, dramatic disappearance.
She thought, too, about the man she had just married. A stranger. Barely even a proper name, really, just an idea, a carefully cultivated reputation built entirely on rumors and closed doors and photographs that simply didn't exist. Somewhere within this enormous, echoing house, he was working, or thinking, or perhaps not thinking about her at all, not even slightly.
She caught sight of herself in the enormous mirror across the room, still half dressed in the borrowed traveling clothes Rosa had helped her change into after the wedding gown had finally come off. Her reflection looked like a stranger to her, pale and hollow-eyed, nothing at all like the girl who had woken up that same morning expecting an entirely ordinary day of helping prepare for someone else's wedding. She wondered, staring at that unfamiliar reflection, whether the girl she'd been that morning still existed somewhere underneath all of this, or whether she had simply been left behind at the church along with everything else.
What kind of man refuses to attend his own wedding?
She didn't have a proper answer to that particular question yet. But she had the distinct, uneasy feeling she was about to find out, whether she felt properly ready for it or not.
• • •
Rosa returned a short while later carrying a tray of food, settling comfortably into a chair beside the bed to keep Silveria company while she ate slowly. She chatted easily about small, unimportant things, the gardens outside the tall windows, the unpredictable weather lately, nothing that touched directly on the far heavier questions still swirling endlessly through Silveria's exhausted mind. It helped, in its own quiet way. By the time the sun had fully set beyond the tall windows, Silveria felt like she could properly breathe again, the sharp panic of the morning finally loosening its grip on her chest, if only slightly.
"You've been very kind to me," Silveria said quietly, watching Rosa gather the empty dishes back onto the tray. "You didn't have to be."
Rosa paused, something thoughtful crossing her weathered face. "I've worked in this house a long time, dear," she said. "I've seen a great many things come and go through these halls. Kindness costs me nothing, and I've found it tends to matter most to the people who receive the least of it. You looked like someone who could use a bit of it tonight."
"Thank you," Silveria said, meaning it more than the simple words could properly express.
"Get some rest if you can," Rosa said, pausing at the door. "Tomorrow will still be complicated, I imagine. But it will be a little easier to face after proper sleep."
That night, sleep refused to properly come. The bed felt impossibly soft beneath her exhausted body, the room too silent, her own thoughts far too loud and tangled together to allow her mind to settle properly. Around midnight, restless and entirely unable to lie still any longer, she climbed carefully out of bed and wandered out into the long, dim hallway, telling herself firmly that she only wanted a simple glass of water. In truth, she genuinely wanted to see more of the house properly, to understand even a small piece of the strange new world she now found herself trapped inside against her will.
She got lost twice before finally, accidentally stumbling upon the kitchen. To her genuine surprise, several members of the household staff were still awake at this late hour, gathered comfortably around a large wooden table, sharing a late meal together, laughing quietly amongst themselves over something one of them had apparently said moments before.
They all froze the instant they noticed her standing uncertainly in the doorway.
"Mrs. Crew," one of the younger maids said, immediately scrambling to her feet, her cheeks flushing bright red with obvious embarrassment. "We're terribly sorry, we didn't think anyone would still be properly awake at this particular hour—"
"Please," Silveria said quickly, holding up one hand to stop them all from rising further. "Don't stop on my account, truly. I couldn't sleep either, if I'm being honest."
They exchanged uncertain glances with one another around the table, clearly unsure how best to properly proceed in this unexpected situation. Silveria pulled out an empty chair herself before anyone could properly object and sat down without waiting for any kind of formal permission.
"Is there room for one more, perhaps?"
Slowly, gradually, the obvious tension in the room began to ease considerably. Someone slid a plate toward her without saying a word. Someone else picked the interrupted conversation back up again, hesitant at first, then gradually easier and more natural, until the entire table was filled once more with warm, easy chatter, the kind of casual, relaxed conversation Silveria genuinely hadn't experienced in years, if ever. Nobody at this particular table looked at her like some kind of problem to be carefully managed or a disappointment to be quietly hidden away from polite company. They simply spoke to her like she was an ordinary person, a regular girl sharing a late meal among friends, nothing especially complicated about the situation at all.
She was laughing genuinely at something one of the maids had just said, something small and silly about an earlier mishap in the kitchen involving a dropped soufflé, when the door swung suddenly open behind her.
Every single person seated at the table went completely, instantly silent all at once.
Silveria turned in her seat, and the laughter died immediately and entirely in her throat.
A man stood in the doorway. Tall. Dark hair. A face carved from something cold and expensive, the kind of face that properly belonged on the cover of a business magazine rather than standing casually in a kitchen doorway at midnight. His sharp eyes swept slowly and deliberately across the entire room and landed, finally, directly and unmistakably on her.
Silveria's stomach dropped straight through the floor beneath her chair.
She knew, without a single person in the room needing to say even one word, exactly who he was.