Chapter 11 - Bianca
I wake to sunlight.
It takes me a moment to understand why that feels significant.
Then I realize—it's the first time since I arrived that I haven't woken to gray skies and oppressive clouds.
The light streaming through the tall windows is golden, warm, painting the blue silk of my bedding in shades of honey and amber.
I lie still for a moment, cataloging how I feel. The crushing weight that pressed me into the mattress yesterday has eased slightly. Not gone—I don't think it will ever be fully gone—but manageable. I have a project now. I have information. I have, if not control, at least the shape of it.
It's enough to get me out of bed.
I dress in practical clothes—dark pants, a soft gray sweater, the flat shoes I can move in.
My hair goes into a braid this time, tight and out of my face.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and barely recognize the woman looking back.
She looks harder than the girl who studied cardiac pathology a week ago. Sharper around the edges.
Good. Sharp edges are useful.
I take breakfast in the kitchen instead of my room.
It's a small rebellion, but it feels important. The kitchen is vast—industrial stoves, copper pots hanging from iron racks, a long wooden table that could seat twenty. Mrs. Novak is there when I enter, supervising a younger woman I haven't seen before.
"Bianca." She looks surprised but not displeased. "I was about to bring a tray to your room."
"I thought I'd come down instead. If that's all right."
"Of course." She gestures to the table. "Sit. I'll have something prepared."
I sit. The younger woman—a kitchen maid, I assume—glances at me with ill-concealed curiosity before Mrs. Novak sends her off with a pointed look. Then it's just the two of us, and the sounds of food being prepared.
"I wanted to ask you something," I say.
"Yes?"
"The greenhouse. Are there gardening tools somewhere? And—is there a nursery nearby? Somewhere that could deliver supplies?"
Mrs. Novak pauses, a coffee pot in her hand. "You're serious about restoring it."
"I need something to do. Something productive." I pause, choosing my words carefully. "And it seems wrong to let it stay dead, when there's still life trying to push through."
She studies me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she nods.
"There's a shed behind the greenhouse—tools, pots, soil. Most of it is old, but some should still be usable. As for a nursery..." She sets a plate in front of me—toast, eggs, fruit. "I can make inquiries. Deliveries to this address require... special arrangements. But it can be done."
"Thank you."
She pours coffee, the rich smell filling the kitchen. "That greenhouse was Mrs. Kashkin's sanctuary. No one has touched it since she died. Not even Mr. Misha, though I know he walks past it sometimes. Stands at the door but never goes in."
I think about Misha yesterday, taking the journal from my hands, his composure cracking for just a moment before he pulled it back together. The way his voice sounded when he thanked me—rough, scraped raw.
"Maybe it's time someone did," I say.
Mrs. Novak's eyes meet mine. Something passes between us—understanding, maybe. Recognition.
"Maybe it is," she agrees.
***
The sunshine holds as I make my way to the greenhouse.
The estate looks different in the light—less gothic horror, more faded grandeur. The stone walls are softer, the gargoyles less menacing. Even the guards seem more relaxed, their postures easier as they patrol the perimeter.
I find the shed Mrs. Novak mentioned, hidden behind a tangle of overgrown hedges. The door sticks, swollen with moisture, and I have to put my shoulder into it to force it open. Inside, dust motes dance in the shafts of light that pierce the grimy windows.
Tools line the walls—rakes and shovels and trowels, their handles worn smooth with use. Bags of soil are stacked in the corner, some split and spilling their contents onto the floor. Clay pots in various sizes crowd the shelves, a few cracked but most intact.
I gather what I need—gloves, a trowel, pruning shears, a bucket—and carry it all to the greenhouse.
The space feels different in the sunlight. Less like a mausoleum, more like a patient waiting for treatment. The grimy glass filters the light into something soft and diffused, casting everything in a golden glow. I can see the potential now—the bones of something beautiful beneath the decay.
I start with the debris, clearing dead leaves and broken pots from the aisles. The work is physical, satisfying in a way that studying never was. My muscles warm, my breath comes faster, and for whole stretches of time I don't think about anything except the task in front of me.
The fern I saved yesterday is still alive, its fronds reaching toward the light.
I check its soil, add a little water, murmur encouragement that would make my professors question my sanity.
But it feels right, talking to growing things.
His mother did the same, apparently—Maria Kashkin, in this very greenhouse, seventeen years ago.
I wonder if she ever felt as lost as I do. If she ever stood among her plants and tried to make sense of a world that made no sense at all.
I'm elbow-deep in a pot of dead hydrangeas when I hear footsteps on the gravel outside.
I know it's him before I look up. Something about the rhythm of his walk, the weight of his presence. My body recognizes Misha before my mind does, a primal awareness that raises the hair on my arms.
He appears in the doorway, backlit by the afternoon sun, his features cast in shadow. He's wearing dark clothes as always—black pants, a charcoal sweater that stretches across his shoulders. His hair is slightly disheveled, as if he's been running his hands through it.
He doesn't enter. Just stands there, one hand on the door frame, watching me.
"You're back," he says.
"I told you I needed something to do." I sit back on my heels, pushing a loose strand of hair from my face with the back of my wrist. "Mrs. Novak found me some tools."
"I see that."
Silence stretches between us. But it's different than before—less charged with anger, more weighted with something I can't name. He looks tired, I notice. Shadows under his eyes, a tension in his jaw that suggests he didn't sleep much.
The journal. He must have read it last night, after I gave it to him. Must have spent hours with his mother's words, her thoughts, her fears.
"Are you going to stand in the doorway all day?" I ask.
Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, or amusement. "My brother used to do this. Stand at the threshold, afraid to come in."
"Why afraid?"
"I don't know. Dmitri never liked soft things. Gardens, flowers—he thought they were weaknesses." Misha pauses. "I think he was afraid if he got too close, he'd start wanting them."
"And you?"
He's quiet for a moment. Then he steps inside, crossing the threshold like it costs him something.
"I used to come here all the time. When I was young. My mother would bring me, teach me about the plants." He moves slowly down the aisle, his eyes scanning the debris and decay. "I haven't been inside since she died."
"Seventeen years."
"Seventeen years," he confirms.
I watch him move through the space, touching leaves and stems with surprising gentleness. His hands are large, scarred, capable of violence I've only glimpsed. But here, among the dead and dying plants, they're careful. Tender, almost.
"She wrote about you," I say. "In the journal. I didn't read much—just the inscription. But there were sketches. Notes."
He stops beside the fern I've been nursing. "She was always writing. Always drawing. She said it helped her make sense of things."
"Did it?"
"I don't know. I was thirteen. I didn't pay attention to what she was trying to make sense of." His voice is rough. "I wish I had."
The regret in his words is so raw that I feel it in my own chest. I know that feeling—the ache of things unsaid, chances missed, understanding that comes too late.
"You couldn't have known," I say quietly. "None of us can know what's coming."
He looks at me then, really looks, and the intensity of his gaze makes my breath catch. There's something different in his eyes today. The ice is still there, but there's heat beneath it now. Something molten and barely contained.
"She would have liked you," he says.
"You don't know that."
"I do." He takes a step closer, and suddenly the greenhouse feels smaller. "She would have liked your stubbornness. Your refusal to be managed. Your—" He stops, shakes his head. "She always said the best things in life were the ones that refused to be tamed."
Like the wildflowers he brought her, growing through cracks in stone.
"Is that what you think I am?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Untamed?"
"I think you're the most stubborn woman I've ever met.
" Another step closer. "I think you've been through hell in the past week and you're still standing.
Still fighting." His eyes drop to my hands, dirt-stained and calloused now.
"Still trying to grow something beautiful in the middle of all this ugliness. "
My heart is pounding. I can feel my pulse in my throat, my wrists, the palms of my hands. He's close enough now that I can smell him—cedar and smoke and something darker, something that makes my stomach clench.
"I need to keep working," I manage.
"Let me help."
"What?"
"I can help." He shrugs off his sweater, revealing a simple black t-shirt beneath, and I have to force myself not to stare at the way the fabric stretches across his chest. "Tell me what to do."
I should say no. Should send him away, maintain the distance that keeps me safe. But the words won't come.
"There's a pot over there," I hear myself say. "Heavy. I couldn't move it by myself."
He nods and crosses to where I'm pointing—a massive ceramic planter, cracked but still intact, full of dead soil and the skeletal remains of what might have been a rose bush. He lifts it like it weighs nothing, the muscles in his arms flexing, and carries it to where I indicate.
"Where do you want the dead plants?" he asks.
"There's a pile outside. By the shed."
He starts clearing debris, working methodically down the aisle opposite mine. We don't talk much—just the occasional direction, the scrape of tools against ceramic, the rustle of dead leaves being gathered. But the silence is different now. Companionable. Almost comfortable.
I find myself watching him when I think he isn't looking. The way he moves—efficient, controlled, every action purposeful. The way sweat beads at his temples as the greenhouse warms in the afternoon sun. The way his hands handle the dying plants with unexpected care.
At one point, our paths cross in the center aisle. We're both reaching for the same broken pot, and our hands brush.
I feel the contact like an electric shock—his skin warm and rough against mine. We both freeze. I look up and find him staring down at me, his pupils dilated, his breathing slightly uneven.
Neither of us moves.
"Bianca," he says, and my name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. Or a warning.
"We should keep working," I whisper, but I don't pull my hand away.
"We should."
Still neither of us moves.
The moment stretches, crystalline and fragile. I can feel his pulse through his fingertips—or maybe that's my own pulse, pounding so hard I can't tell where I end and he begins. The air between us feels charged, heavy with possibility.
Then a guard's voice calls out from somewhere outside—a routine check-in, nothing urgent—and the spell breaks.
Misha steps back. I snatch my hand away.
"I should—" He clears his throat. "Security matters. I should check in."
"Of course."
He moves toward the door, then pauses on the threshold. Turns back.
"Thank you," he says. "For finding the journal. I never knew it existed. I never knew—" He stops, struggling with words that don't come easily to him. "It meant something. To have her back, even just in words."
"You're welcome," I say.
He nods once and walks away, his footsteps crunching on the gravel until they fade to nothing.
I stand in the greenhouse, surrounded by decay and the first fragile shoots of new life, and press my hand to my chest. My heart is still racing—one twenty, maybe one thirty. The kind of tachycardia that has nothing to do with fear.
He helped me. He told me about his mother. He touched my hand and looked at me like—
Like what? Like I mattered? Like he wanted something he didn't know how to ask for?
I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.
I pick up my trowel and get back to work, but my hands are shaking, and the feeling of his skin against mine won't fade no matter how much dirt I dig through.
He's not the man I thought he was. The monster who threatens dismemberment, the enforcer who's killed people, the captor who bought me at an auction—he's also the boy who brought his mother wildflowers, the man who hasn't entered this greenhouse in seventeen years, the guardian who reads his mother's journal alone in the dark.
I'm not sure yet if that makes things better or worse.
But as the sun sets through the grimy glass, painting everything in shades of gold and rose, I realize I want to find out.