Hours had bled into a stagnant, suffocating eternity.
Silver hadn't moved. He remained anchored to the edge of the basin, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the floor—a dark stain that seemed to tether him to the stone. He watched Evangeline's submerged form, his eyes tracing the slow, rhythmic distortion of her figure beneath the surface. Her hair drifted in the purple-tinged water like a nest of drowned serpents, unnervingly still, catching the dim light in oily flashes.
The silence in the room was a physical weight, broken only by the faint, rhythmic tink of water settling.
"It has been hours, Jericho," Silver said. His voice was a low rasp, a jarring intrusion into the quiet that betrayed the frantic, uneven rhythm of his heart.
Jericho didn't even bother to open her eyes. She remained sprawled across the velvet divan with the languid grace of a well-fed predator, the silk of her robes sighing as she shifted. "I told you, little bird, she is in no danger. Look."
