“At peace?” Christian marched toward him. “At peace? How would you know?”
His jaw worked so tightly Silas thought he might break a tooth. Getting right into his brother’s face, he said, “I. Don’t.” And he turned for the door.
“You do.”
Silas ignored the accusations. Wrenched the door open.
“You do!” Christian shouted, and another kinetic blast ripped the door from Silas’s hand and slammed it shut.
“I don’t!” Silas screamed as he whirled around, sending out a kinetic blast of his own. It struck Christian in the chest and sent him hurtling backward, toward the fireplace.
Silas’s stomach lurched into his throat, but his body couldn’t move fast enough to stop it.
His brother crashed into the mantel, smashing his head onto the marble. He crumpled to the floor, leaving a bloody streak above the embers.
For a moment, Silas just stood there, watching.
Then he ran to his brother’s side. “Christian. Christian.”
His brother didn’t respond. He was breathing, but his eyes wouldn’t open. Silas patted, then slapped, Christian’s cheeks. Peeled back his lids to see rolling eyes and dilated pupils.
“Blazes.” He shook his brother, but he didn’t respond. How would he explain . . .
He looked toward the desk. Gorse End. It had taken so long to find that estate, and now his brother was going to . . .
Unless he . . .
Silas hesitated. His mouth went dry while his palms moistened. Chills ran up his arms and down his back.
Unless.
Silas didn’t remember committing to the decision. Nor did he remember using kinesis to lock the door. The idea surfaced in his mind, and then it was happening, just as it had with his mother. Necromancy, chaocracy, kinesis, alteration, element. Time became moot as his brother sucked down into a warped, peanut-shaped thing, and his powers rebirthed inside Silas, strengthening those abilities they shared and adding the one they didn’t—because while Silas has been born with his grandmother’s augury spell of luck, Christian had inherited their granduncle’s wardship magic of spell-turning.
Silas had never considered . . . but now it was too late . . .
The sun had sunk, darkening the room. He stared down at his brother. What had been his brother. The confusion left by the chaocracy wafted away like steam, clearing his head too slowly.
His strength returned by drops.
Stoking the fire, Silas burned the clothes. Moved his tongue around his dry mouth as he summoned the water in the glass on his desk to wash away the blood. Tucked his brother—his brother!—in his shirt and dashed from the study, avoiding the servants, speeding through the house, not truly seeing anything until he went down, down, down to the wine cellar, then to the little hidden door to the second cellar he’d carved out, where his mother rested in a locked iron box, safe from prying hands and worms and rats.
Silas fumbled for the key. He always kept it on him. No one else could find it, use it. He found the key and dropped it. Picked it up and opened the box and slid his brother inside.
His brother.
His brother.
Grabbing fistfuls of hair, Silas keeled over and screamed through closed lips, strangling himself. His pulse rocketed, skin sweated, limbs trembled. He was too hot and too cold, and his brother was in the box.
Pushing himself back, he vomited on the cold stone and mortar. Tears and snot streamed from his face. He bit his lip badly trying to keep the sounds in. The despair, the outrage, the disbelief. All the while, power curled and pumped through him, welcoming him, greeting him. Magic that had been just as alive as his brother had been, not simmering in a soon-to-be corpse.
Murderer.
He retched a second time, and a third, then curled in on himself, smearing vomit up his pant leg and into his hair.
It had to be done.
Yes, it had to be done, hadn’t it?
He’d been defending himself. Just as he’d defended himself against his father. He’d protected himself. The rest was happenstance. No, it was fate. Silas hadn’t pushed Christian into the mantel. Destiny had.
Christian Hogwood had the ability to overpower Silas. He’d forbidden him from leaving the room and, worse, from making his escape to Liverpool. Haunted his steps ever since their mother’s body had disappeared. Christian had lorded over Silas, just as their father had. He would have hurt him, eventually.
Silas had simply struck first.
Now Gorse End would be his, with no trouble. It would be theirs, because Christian was part of Silas now. Just as his mother was. They were together, combined, protecting each other. Safe. Silas was keeping them safe. Keeping himself safe.