The instructions, written in her aunt's spidery cursive, were clear and unsettling. At the dark of the moon, gather blossoms of nightshade, a feather from a crow, and a drop of your own blood. Burn them in the brazier at the heart of the rose labyrinth. Speak the words bound within the earth.
Lilith's modern mind rebelled. Blood magic? Superstition. Yet, the memory of the glowing oak roots and the tangible shift in the estate's atmosphere after the wine offering lingered. The persistent damp in the east wing had receded. The roses by her window, previously blighted, now showed fat, healthy buds.
Cassian had provided the items with a solemn, ritualistic air. The nightshade flowers, velvet-purple and deadly. The ink-black crow feather. A silver lancet, ornate and cold. "The labyrinth will know if your intent is pure," he'd said. "It is the heart of Thornwood. Do not be afraid. I will be at the perimeter. The rite must be yours alone."
Now, standing at the entrance to the overgrown labyrinth, a simple iron brazier at its center just visible in the starlight, Lilith trembled. The night was profoundly silent, as if the world held its breath. She clutched the items, the lancet a heavy promise in her palm.
Step by step, she wound her way through the towering, thorny walls. Whispers seemed to brush against her ears—not words, but sensations. Loneliness. Longing. Protectiveness. They felt like echoes of the house itself, or perhaps of Cassian. She reached the center, a small, circular clearing open to the sky.
Hands shaking, she placed the nightshade and feather in the brazier. Then, gripping the lancet, she pricked her fingertip. A bright bead of blood welled. She held her hand over the brazier, letting a single, perfect drop fall onto the dry tinder.
"For the heart that beats," she whispered, the words coming to her as if from the ground beneath her feet. "For the shadow that guards. I offer this token. Sustain this land."
She struck a match and dropped it in.
The fire did not catch normally. It erupted in a silent, sapphire-blue flame, consuming the offerings in an instant. The blue light shot through the labyrinth's pathways, illuminating the thorns from within for one dazzling second. In that flash, she saw figures—faint, human-shaped shadows woven into the vines, their faces turned toward her. Then darkness returned, deeper than before.
But the brazier still glowed. Not with fire, but with a soft, golden light. In its heart lay a single, perfect rose. It was a color she had never seen—a deep, shifting indigo that seemed to hold galaxies within its petals. It was beautiful, and it was utterly wrong.
A shadow detached itself from the labyrinth wall. Cassian. He moved into the circle, his eyes fixed on the rose. There was a raw, hungry awe on his face that made her shiver.
"You did it," he said, his voice thick. "You woke it."
"Woke what?" Her own voice was small.
"The bond." He reached into the brazier, untouched by heat or light, and plucked the indigo rose. He held it out to her. "This is a bloom of power. Of connection. It is yours, Lilith. A gift from Thornwood to its true keeper."
She took it. The stem was warm, thornless. The scent was intoxicating—midnight, old parchment, and something uniquely metallic, like blood and ozone. When her fingers brushed his, the now-familiar shock was stronger, followed by a wave of dizziness. Images flashed behind her eyes: A man in older clothing, kneeling on this very spot, a knife in his hand… A woman with her aunt's eyes, weeping into the soil… Cassian, standing in this circle for decades, centuries, alone, his face a mask of immortal weariness.
She stumbled. Cassian's arm was around her waist in an instant, holding her upright. "The visions pass," he said, his hold firm, unyielding. "The first real touch of the magic is always potent."
She was pressed against him, the rose between them. He was cold, but where their bodies met, a feverish heat spread through her. His pale eyes searched her face, and in them, she saw not just the ancient being, but a desperate, lonely man. The hunger was there, but so was something else—a yearning that mirrored her own.
"What are you?" she breathed.
His free hand came up, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw with a touch like frost and silk. "Yours," he whispered, the word a vow and a threat. "If you will have me. And if you will have Thornwood, you must have me. We are one and the same."
He lowered his head, his lips hovering a breath from hers. The world narrowed to the scent of the impossible rose, the chill of his body, the magnetic pull in the pit of her stomach. Every rational thought screamed for her to run. But the hollow inside her, the one that had ached for so long, was silent, utterly filled by his presence and the dark, blooming power in her hand.
She didn't close the distance. But she didn't pull away. In the heart of the labyrinth, with the shadows of the past watching, Lilith Thorne accepted the gift, and in doing so, took her first voluntary step into a gilded, gothic cage. She saw the trap now, saw its beautiful, thorny bars. And the terrifying, thrilling truth was: she no longer wanted to escape.