The indigo rose did not wilt. Lilith placed it in a crystal vase on her bedside table, where it pulsed with a faint, hypnotic light, a constant reminder of the labyrinth and the cold press of Cassian's body against hers. Sleep became a tapestry of fragmented visions: stone altars slick with rain, chanting in a forgotten tongue, Cassian's face contorted not in anger, but in profound sorrow as he plunged a dagger not into a sacrifice, but into his own chest.
She awoke each morning with the taste of earth and metal on her tongue, her connection to Thornwood now a tangible thread in her psyche. She could feel the thirst of the roses in the east garden, the slow, patient hunger of the ancient oak. And she could feel him—a steady, dark pulse at the edge of her awareness, a cold star whose gravity she was perpetually in orbit of.
Determined to understand, she ventured into the manor's forbidden wing—the one Cassian had warned her about. The door, warped by time and damp, groaned open to reveal a library, but unlike any other. It was a chamber of records, not of books, but of the land. Pressed flowers filled giant, leather-bound folios, each specimen labeled with dates going back three hundred years. Maps charted the estate's boundaries with eerie, shifting lines. And there were journals. Dozens of them, each belonging to a past Thorne keeper.
Her great-aunt's journal was on the desk, as if waiting. Lilith's hands trembled as she opened it.
"The bond is not with the land, but with the Warden. Cassian. He is the vessel, and the estate is his flesh. We keepers are the blood that flows through it. Our offerings are not to the soil, but to him. He translates our sacrifice into growth, into protection. The older the Warden grows, the more potent the bond, but the more demanding his hunger becomes. My mother used only flowers and wine. I have given small creatures, beloved pets. I fear for the one who comes after me. What will he require of them?"
The entry ended there. Lilith's blood ran cold. Vessel. Hunger. Cassian had made it sound like a partnership with the land. This was a parasitic symbiosis with him.
She read older journals. The pattern was clear. Each keeper's first offering was simple. Each subsequent one grew more personal, more costly. A lock of hair. A vial of blood. A cherished memory written on parchment and burned. The journal of Alistair Thorne (c. 1782) contained a sketch of Cassian. He looked exactly the same. Beneath it, in frantic script: "He calls it love. This slow grafting of his essence onto mine. He says we are becoming one. I can feel his loneliness in my bones. God help me, I welcome it."
Lilith slammed the book shut, her breath coming in short gasps. This wasn't just magic; it was a slow, seductive consumption. Cassian was not just bound to Thornwood; he fed on its keepers, binding their lives and spirits to his own to sustain his unnatural existence. His tenderness, his loneliness—were they real, or just the bait in the trap?
She found him in the greenhouse, repotting venomous-looking orchids. Sunlight streamed through the glass, doing nothing to warm the chill that emanated from him. He sensed her immediately, turning with that preternatural stillness.
"You've been in the west wing," he said, no question in his tone.
"You lied to me." Her voice was stronger than she felt. "You don't serve the land. The land serves you. We're not keepers. We're… fuel."
A shadow passed over his face, not of anger, but of pain. "Is that what you read? That I am a vampire of the soul?"
"What else would you call it?"
He set down the trowel with deliberate care. "I call it survival. A survival I did not choose. The bargain was struck by the first Thorne, a warlock who sought to eternalize his legacy. He bound my mortal life to this soil, thinking to make me an eternal servant. He did not understand the magic he wrought. I became the anchor, but an anchor must be tied to a ship. The keeper is that ship. Without you, I dissipate—a consciousness stretched thin across acres, a suffering with no form. With you…" He took a step toward her, and the orchids seemed to lean in his direction. "With you, I can be present. I can feel. I can remember what it was to be a man, and not just a force."
"By feeling what I feel?" she accused. "By taking pieces of me?"
"By sharing them!" The outburst was sudden, fierce. A crack in his icy control. "Do you think I want this? To watch generation after generation of your line live and die, to feel each new connection form only to be severed by mortality? Your aunt's death was not peaceful for her, but it was an agony for me. A tearing away of a part of my own soul." He was close now, his cold breath stirring her hair. "You asked what I am. I am a ghost haunted by the living, Lilith. And you are the brightest ghost to haunt me in centuries."
His words should have terrified her. Instead, they painted his cruelty in shades of tragic necessity. She saw the centuries of solitude in his eyes, a burden so heavy it had transformed into something predatory. The journals spoke of a slow grafting. She felt its beginnings—the way her loneliness resonated with his, how his dark presence filled her empty spaces.
"What happens next?" she whispered, the fight bleeding out of her, replaced by a dreadful fascination. "What does the bond require now?"
His gaze dropped to her lips, then to the pulse fluttering at her throat. "A memory," he said, his voice low. "Not a trivial one. A cherished one. Of love. Of light. The kind that sustains a human spirit. I need to remember how it tastes."
He was asking for a piece of her joy. A piece of her past. The ultimate intimacy and the ultimate theft. Lilith thought of her parents' laughter, of a summer picnic, a moment of pure, untainted happiness. To give that away felt like a betrayal. But to keep it… and lose this dark, compelling connection, to see the light in his eyes fade back into timeless void…
"I'll think about it," she said, her defiance a fragile shell.
A ghost of that painful, yearning smile touched his lips. "That is all I can ask." He reached out, not to touch her, but to the air beside her cheek. The hellebore in a pot beside her unfurled a new, perfect blossom. "The garden reflects the keeper's heart. It has been grey here for so long. Now, there is conflict. And conflict," he murmured, turning away, "has color."
She stood alone in the greenhouse, surrounded by poisonous beauty, the line between victim and accomplice blurring into oblivion. She held the memory of her parents' love close, but it was already tangled with the image of Cassian's ancient, desolate eyes. The offering wasn't just a price for the land. It was the key to his prison. And a part of her, a part that scared her more than the shadows, was deeply tempted to turn it.