I found Thomas in his study, the room usually a sanctuary of quiet industry, now a tomb. Sunlight streamed through the tall window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air, but Thomas sat hunched over his desk, unmoving.
His leather-bound books, usually scattered open with his research notes, lay neatly stacked, untouched.
“Thomas?” I whispered, his name feeling too loud in the stillness.
He didn’t look up, only a slight tremor ran through his shoulders.
“The grant,” he rasped, his voice raw. “It’s gone. Years of work.”
He lifted a hand, then let it drop, his fingers brushing against a framed photograph of Arthur and me. The university had cited “unforeseen budget reallocations,” a phrase as hollow as a drum.
I walked to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. His usual scholarly calm, the quiet strength that had seen him through the war, had shattered.
“It’s Silas,” I said, my voice firm. “He’s trying to break us.”
Thomas finally met my eyes, his usually bright gaze clouded with a despair I rarely saw.
“What do we do, Eleanor?” he asked, the helplessness in his voice a sharper blow than any of Silas’s machinations.
Just then, a faint scratch at the door caught our attention. A small envelope, stark white, slid silently underneath. I picked it up. There was no address, no stamp.
Inside, a single, elegantly penned line.
“The Lockhart shadow stretches long.”
We looked at each other, the crumpled note a chilling testament to Silas’s reach. The fight, we knew, had only just begun.
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