By evening, he hadn’t smiled once. Not even the polite, tight-lipped kind.

Still, Linsy didn’t show up.

The hallway was steeped in silence when Michael Helwart returned to the old Helwart estate. The air, heavy with twilight, clung to him like a damp cloak. The brass doorknob clicked under his grip, and the scent of varnished wood and distant lavender drifted from within, masking the rot of what lingered unseen in the rooms of the house. The old manor had always felt cold, but tonight, it felt particularly unwelcoming.

He stepped in, tall and brooding, his charcoal-grey coat trailing faint specks of dust with each movement. A servant approached, head lowered respectfully, and immediately dropped to one knee to switch his shoes for the soft-soled indoor slippers custom dictated. Michael’s face was carved in shadow, the lamplight catching the glint of storm in his eyes.

“Where is the madam?” he asked, voice low, stripped of its usual strength.

“Upstairs, sir,” the servant replied quickly, eyes darting away from his master's sharp gaze. “She hasn't come out since returning.”

Michael gave no reply. He was already moving. The creak of the staircase echoed behind him, each step dragging with the weight of the day, the accusations, and the rising ache in his chest that he refused to name. At the top of the stairs, he paused at the door to their bedroom and Linsy’s, though it felt like that title had long lost meaning.

He pushed it open.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn tight against the dusk outside. A shapeless bulge rested on the bed, tucked under thick blankets. Not even a wisp of her hair was visible. That sight alone gave him pause. Linsy, who always lay still and neat even in sleep, was now a mound of panic buried in cotton and feather.

He stepped in slowly, walking toward the bed. Confusion pinched at the edge of his thoughts. His footsteps were quiet, but not silent, deliberate enough to announce his presence without startlement. Still, there was no movement from beneath the quilt.

Michael crouched at the head of the bed, reached forward, and placed his hand gently on the top of the blanket.

The reaction was instant.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried, her voice trembling like a string pulled taut to the point of snapping. Her hand flew out from under the covers and slapped his away with a jarring thud.

He recoiled slightly, more in surprise than pain. The blanket shifted violently as Linsy sat up, pushing him back with weak but frantic hands. Her face emerged from the shadows of the duvet eyes red, wide, rimmed with the ghost of unshed tears. Her fingers, curled like talons around the blanket edge, shook uncontrollably.

“Linsy?” he breathed, caught off guard. Her eyes darted around the room before locking onto his. Recognition slowly began to flicker in her expression.

She had expected someone else.

For hours, she had listened to phantom footsteps circling her door heard them in her mind even when the hall was empty. After being locked in the pitch-black cellar for what felt like years in mere hours, every creak of the house had felt like the grip of chains returning. Every shadow is a prison.

Realizing it was Michael, her trembling slowed, but her expression remained taut.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from holding in screams that had no place to escape.

Michael straightened slowly. Relief should have washed over him to see her relatively unharmed but instead, it burned bitter in his stomach. His lips curled into a sneer that didn’t reach his eyes.

“If it’s not me, who else can be in this house?” he said icily. “Or has your mind wandered far beyond these walls lately?”

Linsy stiffened.

There it was again the old Michael. The version that bled suspicion instead of concern. The version who let his mother, Nancy Helwart, smear her with contempt, and watched in silence when Violet Bento’s name passed through the halls like a promise on everyone’s lips.

She looked down, biting the inside of her cheek. “I wasn’t feeling well today,” she said, voice shrinking into herself. “Please go ahead ask Violet Bento to bring the documents. I wouldn’t want to delay your work.”

The words were spoken with measured calm, but each syllable carved into her tongue like glass. She was excusing herself. From his world. From his life. From a marriage that had long become a performance.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Its night already, I get it, that’s what it’s come to?” he snapped. “You choose today of all days to play the fragile wife? When you’ve already caused enough chaos?”

Linsy blinked. The accusation slammed into her harder than she expected. What chaos had she caused? Was it the mere act of standing in Nancy’s presence without bowing her head low enough? Or was it that her burned hand was now a stain too visible to overlook?

Her wounded hand curled under the blanket instinctively. The skin had blistered before they’d even poured water over it, and the pain had long since dulled. Physical pain rarely outlasted betrayal.

“It won’t happen again,” she said quietly.

Michael scoffed. “No. It won’t,” he said, venom coating each word. “After all, you seem quite prepared to make sure you’re no longer a part of this household.”

She didn’t deny it. How could she? The truth was laid bare now. Linsy had become a shadow in her own home, and even her suffering had no place here.

“Has the woman from last night been found?” she asked suddenly, voice a forced attempt at neutrality.

Michael’s eyes bore into her. “The surveillance footage was corrupted,” he muttered. “Nothing conclusive. No face. No trail.”

A beat passed.

“Then what exactly have you been doing all day?” His tone implied laziness. Uselessness.

Linsy looked toward the window. The sky was bruised with the coming night, as if the heavens themselves were tired of her grief.

She stood slowly, mechanically. “I’ll go now.”

Michael turned his head slightly, confused. “Go where?”

“To the office. I won’t waste any more time. Once I settle what I owe this family, there’ll be no need for further conflict between us.”

She moved past him, every step a declaration. The air around her trembled, the way the sky does before thunder roars. Her fingers moved stiffly as she slipped on her cardigan. The wound on her palm reopened slightly, unseen beneath the sleeve, but felt like a slow leak of dignity.

Michael’s eyes followed her. Something in her voice , the finality of it , made him uneasy. For years, she had been the one waiting. Watching. Yearning. And now she was simply done?

His gaze dropped to her hand.

That hand.

The skin around her palm was angry and pink, puffy with rising blisters. Far worse than what Violet Bento had suffered. That burn had been bandaged delicately and whispered about with pity. But Linsy’s wound had gone unnoticed, neglected, festering in silence.

He hadn’t even asked.

And now she was leaving.

Just as she reached the doorframe, he spoke, his voice hoarse, choked with something he couldn’t name, either anger, regret or fear?

“Wait!”