The rain had thinned into a drizzle by the time Michael disappeared beyond the gates of the Bellamy estate. Claire stood at the tall window of her father's study, her arms folded, her expression calm though her thoughts churned beneath the surface. She tracked the figure below as he crossed the slick stone steps, his shoulders hunched, his pace uneven but determined. A man walking into the storm, clutching nothing but hunger and a battered satchel.
The door clicked shut behind him, and the echo lingered in the air like a final note. Claire pressed her fingers lightly against the cold glass. She didn't know why she felt compelled to watch him so long. He had spoken with a fever that unsettled her, eyes too bright, voice taut with urgency. Yet beneath the obsession, there was something else—something that reminded her of the boy she had once laughed with under a summer sky.
"Dangerous," her father's voice cut through her reverie. Richard Bellamy sat at his desk, pouring another glass of scotch. The amber liquid caught the light, gleaming against the polished wood. "Men who believe too deeply in their own visions are always dangerous. They devour everything in their path, including those closest to them."
Claire turned slowly, folding her arms tighter. "And yet you didn't dismiss him."
Richard's eyes met hers, sharp and cold. "Because even dangerous men have their uses. But don't mistake my curiosity for faith. The moment he falters, I'll cut him loose. You would do well to remember that."
Claire bit back the retort that rose to her lips. Instead she inclined her head, the soldier in her obeying the chain of command even here, within her own home. But inside, she thought of her mother—the way she used to laugh, the warmth in her voice when she spoke of hope, of people worth believing in.
Her father had never spoken of her mother with warmth, only with bitterness at her absence. But Claire carried her in silence, a shadow stitched into every choice she made.
---
Later that night, long after Richard had retreated to his private wing, Claire returned to her room. She closed the heavy door and leaned against it, exhaling a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The estate was quiet, the kind of silence that pressed down like a weight.
Her room was immaculate, though not by choice—her father demanded order in all things. The bed was neatly made, the shelves lined with books from her childhood to her years in the military academy. But on her dresser, among the medals and certificates, sat a small silver locket.
Claire crossed the room and picked it up. The clasp was worn from years of use. She opened it carefully, revealing the faded photograph inside: her mother, smiling, one arm wrapped around a much younger Claire in the garden. Her mother's hair had caught the sunlight like spun gold that day, her laugh carrying across the roses. Claire had been six. A week later, her mother was gone.
She touched the image with her thumb, her throat tightening. "Would you have believed in him?" she whispered.
The words hung in the quiet.
She remembered the day her mother's illness had taken her, the way Richard had stood at the bedside stiff and silent, as though grief were something to be conquered by force of will. He had not wept. He had not even held Claire when she tried to. From that day forward, he had buried himself in empire-building, molding his daughter into steel because he could not bear to let her be fragile.
And yet Claire longed for softness. For something beyond discipline and expectation.
Michael's face surfaced in her thoughts again—haunted eyes, trembling hands, voice sharp with desperation. Dangerous, yes. But there was something in him that echoed her mother's words from long ago: The world needs dreamers, even if they burn too bright.
---
She sat at her desk and pulled a notebook toward her. Not one of her father's ledgers or the military reports that still lingered from her service, but a personal journal she rarely touched. She wrote carefully, the words private, almost sacred.
He remembers me. I don't remember him the same way. But I felt it—the weight in his eyes when he looked at me. Like I was a ghost from his past. Perhaps I am.
She paused, tapping the pen against the page.
He speaks of fire and systems, of tearing down chains. Part of me wants to dismiss him as mad. But part of me… part of me wonders if he sees something I've been too afraid to look at. My father calls him dangerous. I wonder if that is exactly why I can't stop thinking of him.
She closed the journal quickly, her chest tight.
--- Claire's POV
When she finally lay down, the locket still rested against her palm. She closed her eyes, whispering again into the darkness.
"What happened to you, Michael Rivers?"
Outside, the storm had faded, but the streets below gleamed with rain. Somewhere out there, Michael walked alone, the silver watch ticking in his pocket like a heartbeat, the sound carrying through the silence of the night.
And in two different rooms, two different silences, both of them thought of ghosts—his of parents, hers of her mother—and wondered what it meant to believe in someone when belief itself could devour you.