Vincent Heartwood's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Vincent stood in the tower hall while the man wept behind the locked door. He could not knock. A knock would prove the door meant nothing. But silence would let the fear harden until morning, and the man would leave without ever hearing the question. Vincent needed to reach him without touching the door at all. He went down the stairs to find the witch. Morwen sat by the great hearth, grinding something in a bowl. She was small, but she filled the room like a storm about to break. When Vincent told her the man was crying, she set the bowl down hard. "You want me to quiet him," she said. "With magic." "No." Vincent remembered her warning from before. Suppressed fear only comes back worse. "I want to talk to him without the door in the way. Is there a way?" Morwen studied him. "There's a fairy that carries voices. She sits on a windowsill and repeats what she hears, soft, like a friend already inside the room." She frowned. "But she carries your true words. If your voice shakes, she carries that too. She can't lie for you." "Then she won't need to." Morwen whistled low. A tiny figure drifted down from the rafters on rainbow wings, bright as the flowers on the tower vine. She landed on Vincent's shoulder and waited. Vincent climbed back up. The man's window opened to the night air. The fairy slipped through the glass and settled inside, near the flowering vine that spilled color across the sill. Vincent stayed outside, his back to the cold stone, and spoke low. "I know you're afraid," he said. The fairy repeated it inside, gentle, a whisper in the warm room. The weeping paused. "I'm not going to open this door. I gave you the key so you never have to fear me. You can lock me out forever. That doesn't change." The man's voice came muffled through the wood. "Then why did you bring me here?" "Because I love you," Vincent said, "and I would rather lose you free than keep you afraid." The fairy carried it. The room went quiet. Then Vincent heard the bolt slide back. The door opened. The man stood in the firelight, eyes red, but standing. "I heard you the whole time," the man said. "You never came in. You waited." He wiped his face. "I believe you now." He did not weep again. But he did not give his answer either. Instead he asked the thing Vincent had feared most. "Tell me the truth," the man said. "If I say yes, and you turn me — will it kill me?" Vincent's mouth went dry. He had earned the man's trust. Now that trust demanded the one answer he had hoped to soften. The fear was gone. The hard question had taken its place.