"Promise."
She hung up before Lila could ask any more questions.
The apartment felt too quiet after the call ended.
She unfolded herself from the sofa and wandered toward the kitchen, more for something to do than because she was hungry. The countertop held a bowl of lemons from the farmers' market, their yellow bright against the sage-green tile. A small herb garden lined the windowsill—basil, rosemary, thyme—all of them thriving under her care.
Growing things had always made sense to her in a way that people didn't. Plants had needs, yes, but those needs were predictable. Water. Light. Nutrients. The right soil, the right pot, the right amount of attention. Give a plant what it required, and it would flourish. Neglect it, and it would wither. Simple cause and effect.
People were never that simple.
She filled a glass with water from the tap and drank it slowly, staring out the window at the darkened street below. From this angle, she could just see the edge of the trellis Thallos had… awakened? Enchanted? Whatever the right word was for making roses bloom with nothing but a touch.
*They wanted to bloom for you,*he'd said.*I just gave them permission.*
Her chest ached at the memory. It would be so easy to believe him. To believe that he'd done it for her, only for her, and that the magic was a gift rather than a manipulation. Her mother had always believed that kind of thing. But it was never real. And she was always the one left to pick up the pieces.
She sighed and retreated to her bedroom.She changed into her softest pajamas, a worn cotton set covered in tiny botanical illustrations, and slid beneath the weight of her grandmother's quilt. The fabric was soft from decades of washing, the colors faded but still beautiful: a riot of blues and greens and golds that reminded her of summer gardens and peaceful afternoons.
This quilt was one of the few things she had from her grandmother. One of the few things her mother hadn't sold or lost or left behind in whatever town they were fleeing next. Shesmoothed her hand across the familiar pattern and tried to let its comfort sink into her bones.
Sleep, she told herself. Tomorrow's a new day. Tomorrow you can be practical and focused and forget about gold-brown eyes and wine-warm lips and the way he looked at her like she was someone he wanted to know, not just someone he wanted to charm into bed.
Sleep, when it finally came, was fitful and strange.
She dreamed of vines. Endless rows of them, stretching toward a horizon she couldn't quite see. She was walking between them, searching for something, and the vines kept reaching for her—not threatening, exactly, but insistent. Wanting.
Let us in,they whispered.Let us grow.
And then she was in the wine shop, but it was different somehow. Darker. Warmer. And Thallos was there, standing behind the bar, watching her with those impossible eyes.
I don't trust you,she tried to say back, but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, she was walking toward him. Moving like the vines had moved toward her—slow and inevitable and completely beyond her control. And he was waiting for her, patient as the earth, with his hands open and his expression unguarded, and when she finally reached him?—
She woke up with a gasp.
Morning light streamed through the gap in her curtains. The clock on her nightstand blinked 6:47 AM. She lay very still, staring at the ceiling, feeling her heart pound against her ribs.
It was just a dream,she told herself.It doesn’t mean anything.
But even as she thought it, even as she threw back the covers and forced herself towards the shower and the brutal clarity of cold water, she knew it wasn't true.
She was attracted to Thallos. Genuinely, undeniably, bone-deep attracted.
And that was the most dangerous thing that had happened to her in a very long time.
CHAPTER 6
The sun beat down on Thallos's bare shoulders like a personal challenge. He drove the hoe into the soil between the vine rows, breaking up a patch of stubborn weeds that had the audacity to think they could grow in his vineyard. Sweat traced lines down his back, and his hooves left deep impressions in the turned earth as he moved down the row, finding rhythm in the repetitive motion.
*Dig. Pull. Toss. Move.*
*Dig. Pull. Toss. Move.*
Physical labor helped. It always had. When his thoughts ran too fast or too dark, when sleep refused to come, when his hands itched for the familiar weight of a bow across strings—he came out here. He let his body work until his mind had no choice but to quiet.
Today, his mind was being particularly uncooperative.
