Sasha started visiting the estate considerably more often after that first proper reunion, frequently dragging Felix along with her, and slowly, gradually, the enormous, echoing house began to feel a little less like a museum on display and a little more like somewhere actual people genuinely lived their lives together.
"You two are absolutely ridiculous," Sasha announced one lazy afternoon, watching Felix attempt, and repeatedly fail, to teach Silveria the rules of some card game he insisted was simple enough for a small child to properly master within minutes.
"I'm genuinely terrible at this," Silveria admitted, throwing her cards face down onto the table in defeat for the third time in a row.
"You are terrible at this," Felix agreed cheerfully, laughing at her obvious frustration. "It's honestly rather impressive, how consistently bad you manage to be at something so simple."
"Thank you so much, very encouraging of you."
Sasha grabbed a nearby cushion and threw it directly at Felix's head, and the two of them immediately dissolved into an easy, practiced argument that clearly wasn't their first of its kind, something warm and familiar passing between old friends who had clearly known each other for years. Silveria watched them bicker good-naturedly, something quietly aching in her chest at the easy comfort of it all. She had never properly had this growing up. Friends who teased each other freely and without malice. People who simply showed up because they genuinely wanted to spend time with you, not because some family obligation or social expectation required it of them.
"You're staring again," Sasha said, catching Silveria's expression mid-thought.
"Sorry. I'm not particularly used to this."
"Used to what, exactly?"
"People being kind for no real reason," Silveria admitted quietly. "Just because they want to be, not because they're being paid to, or told to, or trying to get something out of it in return."
The teasing dropped entirely out of Sasha's expression at that admission, replaced by something considerably softer. "Well, get used to it," she said firmly. "You're stuck with both of us now, whether you like it or not."
Felix nodded, serious for once amid all the earlier joking. "For what it's genuinely worth," he said, "I don't think Damien picked wrong, whatever the tabloids keep insisting about the entire situation. You're good for this house, Silveria. I've noticed a difference already, small as it might currently be."
"What kind of difference?" she asked, curious despite herself.
"He laughs more," Felix said simply. "Not a lot. But considerably more than he used to, before you arrived here. That matters, coming from someone who's watched him go years at a time without laughing at all, not properly."
Silveria didn't quite know how to respond to that particular observation, so she simply smiled instead, letting the warmth of the afternoon settle over her properly, quiet and entirely real, one of the first genuinely good things that had happened to her since she'd first walked into this enormous, unfamiliar house as a frightened stranger weeks earlier.
They spent the rest of the afternoon like that, easy and unhurried, Sasha eventually abandoning the card game entirely in favor of telling increasingly embarrassing stories about Damien's childhood, much to Silveria's delight and Felix's obvious amusement.
"There was one summer," Sasha said, clearly warming to her subject now, "when he decided, at nine years old, that he was going to build an actual working fort in the garden. Spent an entire week on it, wouldn't let anyone help him at all, insisted he could do the whole thing entirely by himself."
"What happened?" Silveria asked, already grinning at where this was likely headed.
"It collapsed the very first time it rained," Sasha said, grinning widely at the memory. "Completely. Just crumbled into a soggy mess right in front of him. He cried for an entire hour, then rebuilt the whole thing from scratch the very next day, twice as sturdy as before, refusing anyone's help all over again."
"That sounds oddly like him," Silveria said, smiling. "Stubborn to a fault."
"Incredibly stubborn," Sasha agreed. "Always has been, for as long as I've known him. It's probably why he's managed to keep this entire company running successfully all these years, honestly, despite everything working against him. But it also means, once he decides something, good or bad, it takes an enormous amount of effort to properly change his mind about it afterward."
"Has anyone ever managed it?" Silveria asked. "Changed his mind, I mean, once it was properly made up?"
Sasha considered the question seriously. "Pascal, occasionally," she said. "Though even that takes considerable effort and usually several attempts. I've managed it a handful of times over the years, mostly on small things. Felix probably has the best track record, honestly, given how much time they spend together."
"It's not that impressive a track record," Felix said, laughing. "Mostly I've just learned which battles are actually worth fighting with him and which ones aren't."
"What's the secret?" Silveria asked, genuinely curious now.
"Patience," Felix said. "And never making him feel cornered. Damien digs in his heels the moment he feels like someone's trying to force him into something. But give him space to actually think it through properly, on his own timeline, and he'll often arrive at the right answer eventually, all on his own."
Silveria thought about that carefully, filing the information away. "That's useful to know," she said.
"Why do I get the feeling you're already planning to test that theory?" Sasha asked, grinning knowingly.
"I have no idea what you mean," Silveria said, though she couldn't quite keep the small smile from her own face.
They continued talking well into the evening, the conversation drifting easily from Damien's childhood to Sasha's own complicated relationship with the wider Crew family, to Felix's surprisingly detailed opinions about proper tea preparation, which apparently constituted a genuine point of contention between him and Sasha that had been ongoing for years. Silveria found herself laughing more freely than she had in longer than she could properly remember, the easy warmth of genuine friendship settling comfortably around her for what felt like the very first time in her entire life.
"You should stay for dinner," Silveria said eventually, surprising even herself with the genuine hope in her own voice. "Both of you, I mean. If you're free."
Sasha and Felix exchanged a quick glance. "We'd love to," Sasha said warmly. "Assuming Damien doesn't mind unexpected guests crashing his evening."
"I think Damien might actually enjoy it," Silveria said, thinking of the easier version of him she'd glimpsed just that afternoon in his study. "More than he'd probably admit to himself."
As it turned out, she was entirely right. Damien joined them for dinner that evening without a single word of complaint, and the meal stretched on considerably longer than any dinner Silveria had shared in this house before, filled with easy conversation and genuine laughter that echoed pleasantly through rooms that had clearly gone too long without hearing it.
"Tell her about the sailing trip," Felix said partway through the meal, grinning at Damien across the table. "The one when we were seventeen."
Damien's expression shifted into something wary. "Absolutely not."
"Oh, now I have to hear this," Silveria said, leaning forward with interest.
"Damien decided," Sasha began, ignoring her cousin's protests entirely, "that he was perfectly capable of sailing his father's old boat without any proper instruction whatsoever, despite the fact that none of us had ever actually sailed before in our lives."
"I had read several books on the subject," Damien said defensively, though a reluctant smile was already tugging at his mouth.
"Books," Felix repeated, laughing. "You read books about sailing and decided that qualified you to take three teenagers out onto open water."
"What happened?" Silveria asked, delighted.
"We got the boat stuck on a sandbar approximately twenty minutes into the trip," Sasha said, practically wheezing with laughter at the memory. "Had to be rescued by a considerably annoyed fisherman who spent the entire tow back to shore lecturing Damien about proper seamanship."
"It was a valuable learning experience," Damien said, though he was laughing now too, something unguarded and genuinely happy transforming his usually careful features.
Silveria watched him laugh, really laugh, surrounded by people who clearly loved him enough to tease him mercilessly, and felt something warm and fierce settle in her chest. This was the version of him Rosa and Sasha had both described to her, the one buried beneath years of careful control and practiced distance. Seeing it emerge so naturally, so easily, in this particular moment, felt like witnessing something genuinely precious.
"You're staring at him," Sasha murmured to Silveria, quiet enough that only she could hear it over Felix's continued teasing.
"I know," Silveria admitted, not bothering to deny it.
"Good," Sasha said simply, something satisfied in her tone, and turned her attention back to the ongoing argument between Felix and Damien about the exact details of the sailing disaster, leaving Silveria to her own thoughts and the warm, unfamiliar feeling steadily growing in her chest.
The evening stretched on pleasantly after that, story after story emerging from Sasha and Felix's shared history with Damien, each one revealing another small piece of the man he'd been before tragedy reshaped him so completely. By the time Sasha and Felix finally said their goodnights, considerably later than any of them had properly intended, Silveria felt like she understood her husband in a way she hadn't quite managed before, not through anything he'd told her directly, but through the careful, loving testimony of people who had known him his entire life and refused to let him forget who he'd once been.
"Thank you for tonight," she said to Damien, once they were alone again in the quiet house.
"For what, exactly?"
"For staying. For laughing. For letting me see that particular version of you, even just for one evening."
Something soft crossed his face at that. "Thank you for inviting them," he said quietly. "I don't do that often enough anymore. Letting people in, I mean."
"Maybe that could change," she said gently.
"Maybe," he agreed, something hopeful entering his voice that she hadn't quite heard from him before, and they said their goodnights shortly after, both of them carrying the warmth of the evening with them long after they'd each retired to their separate wings of the enormous, increasingly less lonely house.
Silveria lay awake a while longer that night, replaying the evening's easy laughter in her mind, the sailing story, the way Damien's whole face had transformed when he'd finally let himself laugh freely instead of holding it carefully in check. She thought about what Felix had said, about patience, about giving someone space to arrive at things on their own timeline. She didn't know exactly what she was hoping for, not yet. But whatever it was, she suspected tonight had brought them both one careful step closer to it.