She looked up, surprised. “You don’t have to?—”
“This involves my family.” He stepped closer, and the narrow corridor felt impossibly small. “My ancestors. Whatever was done sixty years ago, whatever curse has been eating my bloodline—I’m not going to sit in my office while you uncover it alone.”
His proximity was doing things to her concentration. His heat. The intensity in his gaze. The way his body seemed to curve toward hers without either of them consciously moving.
“This could get dangerous,” she heard herself say. “Whatever’s been feeding on your family—whatever killed Deia—it’s still here. The void roses have been blooming black since I arrived. That means the threat is still watching.”
“All the more reason not to let you investigate alone.”
“I’ve been handling things alone for years.”
“And now you don’t have to.”
The words hit her somewhere soft. Somewhere she’d armored for years.
Don’t. Don’t read into this. He’s just being a responsible mayor. A concerned citizen. A man whose family secrets you’re about to dig up.
But she couldn’t quite make herself believe it. Not with the way he was looking at her. Not with the way her blood was rushing.
“Fine.” She stepped back, breaking the spell. “Tomorrow night. Meet me at the gardens after dark—that’s when the celestial instruments are most active. Bring whatever historical records you can find about Cornelius Marsh.”
“I’ll be there.”
She gathered the folders and headed for the stairs, acutely aware of him following behind her. In the narrow stairwell, their shoulders brushed again. Neither of them moved away.
Reluctant partnership. That’s all this is. Two people with overlapping interests working toward a common goal.
But her heart wasn’t buying it. Her heart was doing a foolish and hopeful thing, reaching toward a man whose fate was consumed by darkness, whose potential for love had been stolen before he was born.
You’re supposed to be running. Stay detached. Stay temporary. Stay safe.
But for the first time in longer than she could remember, running didn’t feel right.
Haven Shores was trying to warn her. The gardens were screaming warnings she was only beginning to understand. And somewhere in the darkness, something ancient and hungry was stirring.
She couldn’t run from that. Wouldn’t.
Whatever was coming, she was going to face it.
And apparently, she wasn’t going to face it alone.
“Tomorrow night,” Hux said as she reached the front door. “Eight o’clock.”
She turned back, found him watching her with an intensity she couldn’t quite read.
“Don’t be late.”
His mouth curved. Just slightly. Just enough to make her stomach flip.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Garden Witch.”
She walked out into the afternoon sun, the stolen files in her bag and the warmth of reluctant partnership lodged beneath her ribs.
ELEVEN
HUX
Several nights in the basement archives, after hours. Days of cross-referencing decoded journal entries with council minutes and family records. Weeks of watching Lunaria Reed’s brow furrow as she translated celestial cipher by flickering fluorescent light.
