“There is nous,” he said quietly. “There never should have been. I am sorry, Fiona. For everything.”
And then he walked on.
Within seconds, the darkness swallowed him, leaving her alone on the cliff with the wind roaring in her ears and the hollow ache of his absence spreading through her chest.
Fiona did not know how long she remained there.
The cold seeped slowly into her bones. The wind tangled her hair and snapped at her cloak. The sliver of moon vanished again behind the clouds, and still she stood, staring at the empty path where he had disappeared.
He had left her.
After everything—after the confessions and the stolen mornings and the whispered promises—he had left her. Chosen fear over love. Solitude over the fragile, frightening possibility of happiness.
She should have been furious.
Part of her was.
A fierce, burning anger wanted to chase him down, seize him by the shoulders, and shake sense into him.
But beneath that anger was something deeper. Something that felt painfully like grief.
Because she had seen his face before he turned away. Seen the anguish there, the terrible certainty that he was doing the only thing he believed was right.
He was not fleeing from her.
He was fleeing from the voice inside his own mind—the one that had whispered to him all his life that he was monstrous, that he was unworthy, that everything he touched would eventually be ruined.
He believed he was saving her.
That was the cruellest part of all.
And she did not yet know how to convince him otherwise.
Eventually, Thomas found her.
He emerged from the darkness carrying a lantern and a blanket, his expression tight with worry. Without asking questions, he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and guided her back along the path toward the castle.
Mrs Blackley was waiting in the entrance hall when they arrived, pale and anxious.
“Miss Hart—thank goodness. We were beginning to worry.”
“Where is he?” Fiona asked.
The housekeeper hesitated.
“His Grace has retired to his chambers,” she said carefully. “He has given orders not to be disturbed.”
“Of course he has.” Fiona’s voice sounded strangely distant to her own ears. “He is very good at that. Giving orders. Closing doors.”
“Miss Hart—”
“I am tired, Mrs Blackley.” She gathered the blanket more tightly around herself. “I am going to bed. If His Grace… changes his mind—if he decides he wishes to speak to me—you know where to find me.”
She did not wait for a reply.
She climbed the stairs slowly, each step heavier than the last, and walked the length of the corridor to her room—her room, not his, not anymore.
Molly was waiting inside, her face crumpling with concern the moment Fiona entered.
