The candle on the desk burned without flickering.
Lord Blackwood sat across from him, hands resting on his knees, and said nothing for a mont. The silence was uncomfortable.
"You fought against my son," he said at last.
"Yes."
"And you ca here. To a father, in his grief." He studied Ryan with dark, unhurried eyes. "That takes sothing—Courage—Not everyone has it." He inclined his head. "Your apology is accepted, Ryan. And I thank you for the courage it took to give it."
He rose from the bed slowly. A gentle, dignified close to a conversation that had reached its natural end.
"That isn’t why I ca," Ryan said.
Lord Blackwood stopped.
He turned.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The apology was genuine," Ryan said. "But it wasn’t the reason I ca to find you." He held the man’s gaze. "Your son asked to deliver a ssage. To you, specifically." A pause. "After he died."
The room was very still.
Lord Blackwood did not sit back down imdiately. He stood where he was, one hand resting on the bedpost, and looked at Ryan with an expression that was difficult to read—not disbelief and not judgent.
"Go on," he said.
Ryan had thought about how to say this on the walk over. He hadn’t arrived at anything particularly elegant.
"I have a bracelet," he said. "It lets see the dead and even speak with them, sotis. Your son—Jas—he found . Shortly after he died." He kept his voice level. "He had one thing he wanted to tell you."
Lord Blackwood was very still.
"He said not to worry about him and how he’s... fine. That’s all. He wanted you to know that."
The silence that followed was the longest kind.
Lord Blackwood turned away, just slightly — not enough to hide his face entirely, but enough to suggest he wasn’t inviting Ryan to watch what happened to it. One breath. Then another.
When he turned back, his composure was intact though imperfect at the edges.
"Ryan Ray," he said carefully. "I do not doubt that you believe what you are telling . And I do not doubt that you ca here in good faith." A pause. "But you will understand that what you are describing is... difficult to accept on word alone."
"I know," Ryan said. "That’s why Jas gave sothing to tell you. Sothing only he would know."
Lord Blackwood was still.
"He said to tell you about the fishing trip." Ryan watched the man’s face. "He said you slipped away from a council eting to take him to a river south of your estate. That you sat there the whole day and didn’t catch a single fish." Ryan paused. "He told you it was the most boring day of his life."
The room was very quiet.
"But it wasn’t," Ryan continued. "He said it was the best day he ever had with you... he also asked to keep his younger brother safe."
Sothing broke in Lord Blackwood’s face.
Not all at once—it happened in stages, the way a wall doesn’t fall but cracks at first, and then the cracks began to spread, until there was nothing holding it together anymore. His eyes closed. One hand ca up to his mouth, pressed there, and stayed.
He turned away.
He stood at the window with his back to Ryan, shoulders rigid, and said nothing for a long ti.
It almost held.
Almost.
His shoulders dropped, just once, and he brought his fist up to the window fra and rested it there, his forehead dropping toward it.
Ryan looked at the floor.
When Lord Blackwood spoke again, his voice had been carefully reassembled—but it was not quite what it had been before.
"No one knew about that day," he said. "Jas had told it was a waste of ti. He never ntioned it again." A long pause. "I always assud he’d forgotten it entirely."
He turned back, and looked at Ryan with eyes that were red at the edges but steady.
"He asked you to keep Edward safe?" The grieving father said.
"He did."
Lord Blackwood was quiet for a mont. Then, carefully: "Is he here now? My son."
"No," Ryan said. "He—He moved on. Shortly after we spoke." He paused. "I think it was because he was at peace."
Lord Blackwood nodded slowly, and said nothing for a while.
"Edward is at the estate. He has been there alone through all of this—through the trial, he would have been inford of his brother’s death by now—with no one but servants and empty rooms for company." He paused. "I must return to him. Today, if I can manage it." His eyes stayed on Ryan. "Jas asked you to keep him safe. I am asking the sa thing. Stay with us, at least for the half term. As my guest."
Ryan opened his mouth.
"The estate has land," Lord Blackwood continued, unhurried. "Forest. Space enough if you wish to train. It is not a small place." He took a pause. "And Edward needs people around him who are not paid to be there."
"I don’t know your son," Ryan said carefully. "Edward. I’ve never t him."
"I know."
"He might not want a stranger in his ho."
"Probably not, at first." Lord Blackwood said it without hesitation, as though he had already considered this and moved past it. "But Jas trusted you. And Jas was a better judge of people than even I am."
I don’t know if Jas had much choice in trusting or not... There weren’t many people around who could see ghosts.
Ryan looked at the candle on the desk, still burning despite the morning light filling the room around it.
"Alright," Ryan said. "I’ll co."
Lord Blackwood nodded once.
"We leave tomorrow morning," he said. "Quite early." He looked at Ryan steadily. "Is there anyone who will be travelling with you?"
Ryan thought of Eleanor, Jas and Jared back at the dorm.
"Three people," he said.
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