The mansion was too quiet. Erin pushed the blanket off her lap, the silence pressing too heavily on her chest. She slipped out of the room, barefoot and careful not to make a sound. The cold marble floor chilled her soles, but she didn't mind. Her mind had been racing for hours.
She just needed some air.
The hallway stretched on in muted tones, the nightlights along the wall glowing soft and gold. She wandered aimlessly at first, just letting her thoughts untangle. But then she stopped.
There, at the far end of the east corridor, was a door she had never noticed before. The wing looked darker than the rest of the house, untouched almost, like a part of the past the rest of the mansion had long forgotten.
Curiosity won over caution.
She walked over and opened the door, its old hinges creaking softly. The air inside was faintly perfumed—lavender and something older, like paper and cedarwood. She stepped inside and looked around. The room wasn't dusty, so someone had been maintaining it, but it was clearly unused.
In the center of the room stood a bust of a woman carved in pale stone. Around her neck, draped carefully, was a pendant. It glinted softly under the overhead light. Erin's eyes narrowed.
She walked closer.
It was elegant—an old silver chain and a pendant shaped like a teardrop, its center a pale blue diamond. But what truly caught her attention was the symbol etched on the back of the gemstone: a looping pattern, like vines circling a crescent.
She'd seen it before. Somewhere.
Without thinking, Erin lifted the pendant from the bust and turned it over in her hands.
Snap.
It slipped from her fingers.
She gasped and knelt down. The chain had broken and the pendant had cracked along the center, the once-solid diamond split with a fine line. Her stomach dropped.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
The shout made her jump.
Xander stormed into the room, his eyes blazing.
Erin stood up too quickly. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
"Why are you here? This wing is off limits!" he bellowed. "Who said you could be wandering around like this?"
Her heart pounded. She hadn't seen him this angry since the very beginning.
"I just needed air. I didn't know this was off-limits," she said quietly. "I saw the pendant and—"
"That doesn't give you the right to touch anything! What makes you think you can be just anywhere without permission? You're just a maid."
His words struck like ice.
She looked up at him, something hollow settling in her chest. "I thought you said I wasn't just a maid."
Xander flinched.
But then his gaze hardened again. "Maybe I was wrong."
Erin took a step back. Her fingers were still trembling. She placed the cracked pendant gently on the small table beside the bust and turned away.
She walked past him, ignoring how her throat threatened to close. She wouldn't cry. Not in front of him.
She made it to the door.
But then she heard it. Quiet. Uneven.
"I'm sorry."
She turned, eyes wide.
Xander stood there, staring at the floor, fists clenched at his sides.
It wasn't just the words. It was how he said them.
Like he meant them.
And the silence that followed held more weight than anything else that had been said.
Xander hadn't expected the words to leave his mouth.
They hung between them, unfamiliar and heavy. He hadn't said them in years—not like this. Not with meaning. Not with something breaking inside his chest as he watched Erin freeze, her back still turned, the tension in her shoulders obvious even under the soft cotton of her sweater.
She didn't say anything.
He didn't blame her.
The room felt colder now. Harsher. Emptier.
His eyes drifted to the cracked pendant still resting at the base of the bust. A jagged line now split through the diamond—delicate, unforgiving, permanent. It felt like a mirror to everything inside him.
He ran a hand down his face, exhaling sharply. "I didn't mean that," he said, his voice lower now. "What I said back there. You're not—just a maid."
Still nothing. She stood quietly, her fingers tightening slightly at her sides.
Xander stepped closer, but not too close. He didn't want to startle her again. "I was angry. That room… it's off-limits for a reason."
She finally turned.
Her eyes met his, guarded and unreadable. "Why?"
He hesitated. The truth rose to his throat, but it stayed there—lodged like a stone he couldn't move. That pendant was all he had left of his real mother. The only thing they didn't take away or lock behind a vault of power and politics. That room was the last place he could feel like himself. That cracked diamond? It felt like watching her slip away again.
But he couldn't say any of that. Not now. Not to her. He can't trust her.
"I just… don't like people going there," he offered stiffly, his gaze dropping.
Erin scoffed faintly and looked away. "That's not a reason."
"I don't owe you one," he snapped before he could stop himself.
She flinched, and the guilt hit him like a punch.
Erin turned to leave, her voice shaking even though she tried to steady it. "You know what? You're right. I'm just a maid."
"Erin—"
She paused at the door but didn't turn around. "Don't follow me."
Then she was gone.
The room felt suffocating now.
Xander stayed where he was, his fists clenched, his jaw tight, his heart heavy with the words he'd thrown like knives and the ones he couldn't bear to speak. He told himself he couldn't trust her. That she worked for them—his parents. That she could twist anything he said, use it against him.
But deep down, he knew the truth.
He didn't hate her. He couldn't. And that scared him more than anything else.