Waiting.
Waiting for what?
She found the Celestial Pavilion by following the pull. A circular structure of weathered stone, its domed glass ceiling cracked and clouded but miraculously intact. Every surface was carved with intricate patterns—star charts, planetary alignments, celestial mathematics rendered in rock that must have taken decades to complete. This was the heart of the gardens. The place where Deia Tullio had done her most important work.
The place where Deia Tullio had died.
A stone bench sat near the pavilion’s entrance, simple and worn. A plaque had been set into its back:She Watched the Stars So We Could Sleep.
Lunaria’s chest ached. She knew that feeling. The burden of seeing too much, of watching futures unfold while everyone else slept peacefully, unaware of what the sky was telling you.
She knelt at the pavilion’s edge, where the flagstones met the overgrown earth. Her fingers brushed the soil—cool, damp, thrumming with dormant potential. Six decades of waiting, condensed into a single heartbeat of sensation.
This is a terrible idea.
She closed her eyes and let her magic reach down.
“Wake up,” she whispered. Not a command. A request. “Please. Just a little. Show me what you need.”
The response was immediate.
Light bloomed in the darkness.
Not the harsh glow of artificial magic but softness, light alive—moonflowers unfurling beneath her fingertips, their petals catching starlight and holding it captive. They hadn’t bloomed in sixty years. They bloomed now, pale silver-white, spreading out from her touch in a cascade of awakening that rippled outward.
Lunaria’s breath caught in her chest.
More flowers followed. Constellation orchids with petals that seemed to hold the shapes of distant star systems, their centersglowing faintly with patterns she recognized from her charts. Night jasmine releasing a fragrance so sweet and heady, it made her head swim. A carpet of luminescent moss creeping along the broken pathways, painting them in soft blue-white light, guiding her deeper into the garden’s heart.
The gardens weren’t dead.
They were sleeping. Waiting. Starving for celestial magic, the way parched earth craves rain.
And now she’d fed them.
Too much, part of her whispered.You’re giving them too much. Pull back. Control it.
She couldn’t stop.
The magic flowed out of her in a rush, channeled through the ley lines, spreading through the garden’s network of dormant life. The Celestial Pavilion’s cracked dome began to glow softly overhead, starlight filtering through the clouded glass in patterns that hadn’t been visible in generations—the same charts carved into the stone, now burning gently in the sky above.
She was dimly aware that she was on her knees, both hands pressed flat to the earth, her magic pouring out of her in a torrent that would leave her exhausted for days.
She didn’t care.
And then?—
Chiming.
Clear, high notes ringing through the night air. Not bells—flowers. Somewhere deeper in the garden, climbing vines with blossoms shaped like tiny bells were swaying without wind, producing a sound that made the hair rise on Lunaria’s arms.
Warning Bells.
She’d read about them—flowers bred by celestial witches to detect approaching danger, to sing when threats drew near.They shouldn’t be blooming. They shouldn’t becapableof blooming after decades of dormancy.
They only chimed when danger approached.
Lunaria pushed to her feet on legs that trembled, her magic still pouring into the soil despite her attempt to rein it in. Out of control now. The gardens were drinking her dry, and she couldn’t make herself care because they were so hungry, so desperate, soalive?—
