A heavy silence stretched between them. Silver didn't look away; instead, he studied her with a tilted head, his unblinking gaze crawling over her face as if searching for a crack in her stone-cold mask.
"Jester," Evangeline broke the quiet, her voice flat and freezing. "Do you find your eyes so useless that you'd risk losing them for a stare?"
Silver didn't flinch. Instead, a small, knowing smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. He didn't offer a grand defense or a poetic retort. He simply stepped closer, invading her personal space with a casualness that would have cost any other man his head.
"Then explain that look," she demanded, her jaw tightening.
With a long, dramatic sigh that seemed to mock the tension in the room, Silver reached down. His movements were fluid, almost careless, as he took the severed head from her lap. For a fleeting second, his smirk vanished, replaced by a dark, private shadow as he looked at the dead girl.
