He pulled open a filing drawer, revealing folders stuffed with yellowed papers. Lunaria leaned in to look, and the movement brought her close enough to catch his scent. Warmth and cleanliness, with an undertone of spice. No cologne—just him.
Focus. Dead witches. Mysterious curses. Very serious business.
“What am I looking for?” Hux asked.
“Anything about the gardens. About Deia Tullio or Cornelius Marsh. About an entity called the Hollow King.”
He went still. “The what?”
“The Hollow King. Deia mentioned it in one of her entries—an entity that feeds on potential, on futures, on fated bonds. I think that’s what’s been consuming your family’s capacity for mates.” She glanced at him. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No.” But his voice was strange. Distant. “Nothing.”
They worked in silence, pulling folders, scanning documents, setting aside anything that looked relevant. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Dust motes drifted in the stale air. Twice, their hands brushed while reaching for the same file. Twice, neither of them commented on it.
The tension was different. Less antagonistic. Tension simmered beneath the surface—awareness, maybe. Recognition. The sense that they were both reaching for answers that might change everything.
“Here.” Lunaria pulled a folder from the stack she’d been reviewing. “Council minutes from October 1964. There’s a section on the gardens.”
She read aloud, translating the formal bureaucratic language into plain language. The council had voted to commission an independent review of the Celestial Botanical Gardens’ magical infrastructure. Concerns had been raised about the gardens’ warning systems activating without apparent cause. Deia Tullio had testified that she believed a supernatural threat was approaching and that the community should prepare.
“Her testimony was dismissed,” Lunaria said, scanning ahead. “The council voted four to one to table her concerns pending further evidence.”
“Who cast the dissenting vote?”
She checked the record. “Georgia Gentry. Panther elder.”
“Wyatt’s aunt.” Hux’s jaw tightened. “She’s been evasive about the old days. Gets strange whenever anyone mentions Deia or the gardens.”
“Because she believed Deia and no one else did.” Lunaria flipped to the next page. “There’s more. A month later—November 1964—Deia died. The council voted to close the gardens pending the appointment of a new caretaker.”
“A caretaker who never came.”
“Correct. The gardens were never reopened. They just... sat there.” She set down the folder, frustration mounting. “Someone covered this up. Deia was warning the council about danger, and a month later she was dead, and no one ever followed up on what she’d found.”
“The vote to dismiss her testimony.” Hux was frowning at the council minutes. “Look at the names of the council members who voted against her.”
Lunaria looked. Her blood went cold.
Three of the four names were unfamiliar. But the fourth?—
“Cornelius Marsh.”
“He was on the council.” Hux’s voice was flat. Hard. “He voted to ignore the warning. And a month later, the witch who raised the alarm was dead.”
They stared at each other across the dusty archive, the implications hanging heavy between them.
“This isn’t just a curse,” Lunaria said slowly. “This is a cover-up. Whatever Deia discovered, whatever she tried to warn people about—Cornelius Marsh silenced her. And then he buried it so deep that no one’s found the truth in sixty years.”
“Until you.” Hux’s gaze was intense. Searching. “Until you showed up and started waking the gardens.”
“They were waiting.” She thought about the way the soil had reached for her magic, desperate and starving. The way the flowers had bloomed at her touch. The way the Warning Bells had started chiming the moment she’d arrived. “The gardens have been trying to tell someone what happened. They just needed a celestial witch who could hear them.”
“And now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here.” She gathered the relevant folders into a stack. “I need to take these with me. Cross-reference them with Deia’s journals. There’s more in her workshop—star charts, research notes, instruments I haven’t had time to catalog yet.”
“I’ll help.”
