The door to the study opened with a muted groan, its brass handle cold beneath August's fingertips. He stepped inside slowly, as though each movement had weight, as though the very air opposed him. The room welcomed him in silence, cloaked in the same dim gold of early morning that stretched across the manor's corridors like mourning veils.
Books lined the shelves from floor to ceiling, spines gilded, some worn with time. The hearth was cold. A faint scent of ink and sandalwood lingered in the corners—scents he once found comfort in. Now they made the space feel foreign. Not unwelcome, just… changed.
August shut the door behind him with a soft click.
He crossed to his desk and sank into the luxury chair, one that had once held him like a throne but now felt too large, too hollow. His fingers trailed across the polished wood. The waxed surface gleamed, pristine, untouched. But his mind wasn't here. Not truly. Not in this moment.
His smoke-grey eyes wandered to the long, velvet-draped sofa against the far wall.
That was where it happened.
He could still feel it—Elias's weight pressing him down, the strength in those arms, the fire in his voice. That moment when August had tried to rise and Elias, unbending and unyielding, had forced him back against the cushions.
"You will rest," Elias had growled, jaw tight, green eyes burning with something unspoken. "Or I'll tie you to this bloody bed myself."
August had frozen then—less out of fear, more out of shock. No one had ever dared to threaten him with care. No one had ever said those words with such terrifying tenderness. It had left him stunned, breathless. Defenseless.
He lowered his head onto the desk.
The wood was cool beneath his cheek.
His eyes fluttered closed.
And memory unfurled.
The cold water. The stinging frost of Everin's cruel drug bleeding through his veins. The sickness clinging to him like vines. How Elias had stayed—drenched, shivering, cursing beneath his breath—as he kept August from slipping under.
"You're not dying on me," Elias had muttered, arms wrapped around August's frail form in the water. "You're not leaving like this."
August remembered how he had leaned into that warmth, barely able to hold himself upright.
"Because of me", He got sick…
He turned his face slightly, pressing his brow to the desk.
And then another image—
Elias, was crouching one knee and whispering "I am sorry" rubbing the small of his back as August dry-heaved into Elias chest. The bile rising after a single spoonful of broth. His body rejecting even kindness.
August had pushed him away, embarrassed. Angry. Humiliated. His voice had cracked when he'd snapped, "Get out. Just get out, Elias." "I don't want to see your face"
But Elias had only looked at him with aching eyes, whispered, "I'm sorry," and left quietly.
Now, seated in the silence of his study, August wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly cold.
Why did you stay, Elias? Why did you keep choosing me, even when I was all thorns and ruin?
His lips parted in a breathless whisper:
"I didn't deserve it."
Guilt curled in his chest like smoke.
He had pushed Elias away so many times. With silence. With coldness. With sharp words. And still, the fool had returned. With bandage's. With fire in his heart.
Now he looked at August like a stranger.
And August didn't know if he could bear it.
His hand reached for the drawer to the right of his desk and pulled it open. Inside lay a simple handmade—wooden knight. Elias gives this to august when he was a child, August had kept it.
He stared at it now, fingers brushing the edge.
A token.
A trace of the man who once knew him better than he knew himself.
And now couldn't even say his name.
The silence in the study thickened.
The room remembered.
Even if Elias did not.
And August—
He wept, soundless and still, until the dawn kissed the windows with light.
But beneath the handkerchief, something else: a letter.
He paused.
It was one he had read before—at least, he thought he had. But now the handwriting looked unfamiliar, the words blurred by time and fear. As his fingers brushed the edge, something shifted in his memory.
The boy.
In his mother's arms.
The dream returned, vivid and cruel. Firelight on velvet curtains. The child, faceless but familiar. The pleading in her voice—Protect him, August. Before it's too late.
His breath caught.
He looked at the letter again, as if it might whisper answers, but none came. Only the silence.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he stood.
He crossed the study, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway. His bare feet padded across the marble as he made his way down a corridor he hadn't walked in after he found a letter in his fairytal's book.
To the room that once belonged to his parents.
The chamber was vast and quiet, the air preserved like an ancient breath. August stepped inside, his fingers skimming the edges of the carved doorframe. He had avoided this place most of his life—not out of fear, but reverence. Like disturbing a tomb.
He first searched the drawers, then the cabinets. He opened chests, lifted linens, felt along the backs of picture frames. Nothing. No clues. No letters. No names.
But something tugged at him.
The wardrobe.
Not the tall, carved armoire from his dream—the one with the hidden child inside. No, this one is different. This wardrobe stood at the far end of the room, grand and unfamiliar, its polished surface gleaming. He realized with a start that he had never opened it before. Had never even noticed it.
It must've been added when he was still a toddler.
He stepped toward it slowly, heart beginning to beat faster.
The closer he got, the more wrong it felt.
This wardrobe—too pristine, too new among the antique room—felt like a secret pretending to be furniture.
August hesitated, then placed his trembling fingers on the handle.
He opened the doors.
Nothing.
No clothes. No shoes. No scent of perfume or mothballs. Just emptiness.
Except—
There. At the very back.
A door.
August stared.
Not a panel. Not a false wall.
A door.
His breath lodged in his throat. He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. His fingers shook as they reached forward, grazing the old brass knob.
He turned it.
It gave way with a soft, ancient click.
The door creaked open. Behind it, a narrow staircase curled downward into darkness.
No cobwebs. No dust. As though it had been cleaned—and forgotten.
His heartbeat drummed wildly.
He stepped in.
With each stair, the darkness receded. Light bloomed ahead, little by little, as though the room below sensed his arrival.
And then—
He saw it.
Not a dungeon. Not a vault.
A nursery.
A beautiful, hidden nursery.
A cradle carved of pale wood, nestled beneath a canopy of embroidered stars. A basket lined with silk. Small toys—wooden horses, plush animals, delicate rattles. Dresses and shirts no larger than his palm, hung neatly on tiny hooks.
Dust clung to everything, but the presence was unmistakable.
A child had once been loved here.
A child he had no memory of.
August stumbled forward, his hand brushing over a miniature rocking horse. The surface was cold beneath his skin. His fingers curled against it.
Why…?
Why did this room exist?
Why didn't he remember any of it?
Weren't they my parents?
Why had they hidden this room?
Why had they hidden… someone?
His mind reeled.
The dream. The boy. The mother holding someone else.
"Protect him."
His knees threatened to give way.
August stood in the middle of the room, overwhelmed, shattered by the gentle horrors of the truth.
This place had been untouched for years.
But its silence screamed.
And the toys—
The toys were not his.
He reached toward a delicate rattle, resting atop a faded cushion. It shimmered faintly in the light—green and black, interwoven like vines and night. The colors—so precise, so strange—mirrored the hues of Elias's eyes and hair.
August's fingers curled around it.
It was beautifully crafted, heavier than it looked. Ornate, not something a common child would play with. The paint had only chipped slightly, still vibrant beneath layers of dust.
His breath trembled.
Slowly, he looked to the tiny clothes hung beside it—embroidered, exquisite. So many pieces. Small shoes. Silk ribbons. Things meant for a child cherished beyond reason.
But not him.
He didn't remember any of it.
He had no memory of these toys, this cradle, this room.
And then he turned.
Drawn like tide to moonlight, he stepped toward the elegant canopy at the far end of the room. The cradle beneath it was carved with the utmost care—stars and feathers etched into the headboard. Beside it rested a basket, trimmed in lace and lined with golden thread.
It was… beautiful.
So beautiful it made something ache in his chest.
His anger softened in the light of it. But the ache remained.
The room was breathtaking.
And yet, it broke him.
Who was the child?
And why did it feel like that answer lived inside Elias's eyes—
Eyes that no longer knew him?