There are nights in the manor when even the ancient portraits seem to judge, their dark eyes watching the pair of you across gilded frames. Tonight, the fire offers little warmth; the room feels too large, every silence swollen with the unyielding pressure of tradition.

Regulus paces—restless, contained, the heel of his slippered foot nearly wearing a groove in the Aubusson rug. You sit curled on the settee, the latest letter from his mother open on your knee, words like duty, legacy, and continuation underlined in elegant, imperious script.

He stops, finally, beneath the crest of the House—the serpent twined in silver thread above the mantel—and drags a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. “It is always the same,” he mutters, voice taut as piano wire. “Every month, another suggestion, another tonic—advice from Healers, from relations who’ve never set foot in this room, all desperate to see another Black in the nursery before winter is out.”

He won’t look at you, but you feel his frustration ricochet across the room—directed everywhere and nowhere at once. “It isn’t you,” he says too quickly, a catch in his voice betraying the raw edge of his anxiety. “It’s the House, the line, the expectation… as if happiness or peace could be brewed up in a cauldron and poured out as an heir.”

His shoulders slump, and in the reflection on the window, you see how young he still is beneath the weight of all those centuries pressing down on him. You stand, crossing to him, and slip your hand into his. He squeezes back, hard—seeking comfort, apology, absolution in the same silent plea.