Chapter Twenty-Three
ELODIE
The greenhouse door clicked shut behind me, sealing the cold out with a soft puff of air.
For a moment, the silence inside felt almost sacred, like stepping into a forgotten part of the world.
The scent of moss, old soil, and faint rosemary drowsed the air.
I slipped between the rows of overgrown vines and little clay pots, while the soft winter light spilled through the glass in grey ribbons.
I reached the small round table hidden at the back, nearly swallowed by ivy, and let myself sink into the floral pillow of the rusted iron chair.
Laying the note Hudson gave me over the table, I turned it once, twice, but it remained blank.
Then, I held it up into the soft light. Nothing.
No ink. No message. Just a whisper of parchment that sat heavy between my fingers.
Read it when you feel safe. That’s what he said. I looked around, taking in the army of plants. What could be safer than this?
Maybe he forgot to write it…but he doesn’t seem the type.
I shifted on the chair as another idea bloomed in my head. I read about inks that only revealed themselves through certain chemical reactions—oxidation-reduction or heat. I looked around, searching for anything that I could use to try out my theory—
“Elodie.”
The air stilled, and even the leaves of the plants seemed to stiffen. I set the paper down onto the table, my eyes not leaving my mum. She stood a few paces away, cold winter light curling around her. She looked almost whole this time, her eyes gleaming with the same soft green as mine.
I stood, the chair scraping back. She tilted her head, and something in my chest collapsed in on itself. She was gone for so long; I wasn’t sure I would ever see her again.
“I have so many questions,” I breathed, the words falling off my lips with urgency.
She moved my way, weightless over the rough stone path, her expression gentle.
“I found your last diary,” I said. “About your friends. Hudson, Vitalie, Alex.”
Her head twitched a little at that, but she didn’t answer.
“Did you know that he died? Alex, I mean.”
Her brows creased, and she looked like she was debating what to answer. But I was too curious to wait.
“And Lilian—your mum…did you know she started adopting kids after you left?”
She turned slightly, brushing her hand across the leafy edge of a pot, as if admiring it.
“Mum?”
Still, she didn’t speak. Instead, she walked slowly toward one of the walls, her fingers barely skimming the glass as she peered through it. Her movements were fluid, a little too light, too much like a memory.
I swallowed hard. “Can you hear me?”
At that, she turned back to face me. Her eyes met mine, and for a second, something shifted in them. Something I wasn’t familiar with. Almost like annoyance, but not entirely.
“Did you find the book?” she asked, and my brows creased.
A question to a question. That wasn’t like her.
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
She took a step closer. “You need to hurry, bug.” She raised her hand, almost caressing my face, and I could barely hold myself from trying to lean into her touch. “Time isn’t limitless.”
Questions bloomed inside me, stirring warm before burning with urgency.
“What does that mean?”
Her hand dropped, brushing the table’s edge. “You’re on the right path.” Her voice was faint, distant, layered like it was echoing from inside a cave. “It hides in the woods.”
The woods. A shiver crept down my spine at the memory of the river, and I glanced down at my arms.
“But why do I need to find it?” I asked after a moment.
She looked at me, her gaze pouring into my own, and fear grabbed my throat when I realised she was slipping away, like water through cracks.
“Mum,” I whispered desperately. “Don’t go yet.”
But she faded like fog curling back into the sky before I even formed the words.
I dashed through the forest, weaving between the bony trees. The sky was a dismal grey overhead, the air thick with the imminent promise of rain.
There was no sound of birds, no sign of life, despite the slumbering trees, and even those curved oddly, unlike anything I had seen before.
The leaves crunched under my boots on the muddy path as I continued along on the same route I took a few weeks ago.
I could hear the river streaming close by, but this time, I avoided it by all means.
Holding my knife firmly in my hand I followed a different melody. One from my dreams.
I pushed through a curtain of low-hanging branches, and a familiar clearing unfolded in front of me. Gravestones encircled the space like silent sentinels, some half-buried, others cloaked in moss.
My blood surged, my heartbeat an erratic drumbeat against my ribs as I crossed the clearing, avoiding the wild privets. The Virginia Creepers that hid the gate of the mausoleum were there, flowing like a low hanging emerald curtain instead of the river of crimson I saw in my dreams.
I flipped the penknife between my fingers, tracing the leaves and butterflies edged into its handle, as I rested my feet between the wet foliage, trying my best not to slip on them.
Then, I slashed. The blade whispered through them, one stem at a time, their ivory sap streaking across my fingers. It smelled faintly metallic, like rust and rot. Just as I caught a glimpse of grey limestone behind the last cluster of leaves, something jerked my ankle.
The knife slipped from my grip.
I staggered, and instinctively caught hold of a nearby vine to stop my fall. Pain lanced through me. Thorns, long and hooked like fishbones, buried themselves into the skin of my palm as if the plant had been waiting for me.
I clenched my teeth and tried to stay upright, even as the vine dug deeper. My hand burned, blood trickling in thin lines between my fingers. I looked down and froze.
A thick, dark green creeper twisted up my calf, thorns glinting wetly as it coiled tighter and tighter.
It moved like it had purpose. Like it was hunting.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.
Panic clawed its way up my throat. I tried to shake it off, but every tug sent another thorn slicing into my trousers.
“Bloody—”
The curse died in my throat as another tendril broke free from the wall, slithering toward me like a bloodied vein.
It wrapped around my wrist with a whip-like snap.
I hissed through clenched teeth as small drops of blood broke free beneath my skin, welling up where the thorns pierced through.
The crimson was quickly swallowed by the dark fabric of my coat sleeve, disappearing like it had never existed, which I would have easily believed, had the dull, gnawing pain that throbbed in time with my heartbeat not been left behind.
What kind of ill-fated plants were these?
I looked down, searching frantically for my knife. Where could it have fallen? Then, half-hidden beneath the sting of a nettle, its silver blade caught a flicker of light. I stretched my fingers, but the vines held my wrists in place.
A low, measured voice broke the silence of the forest around me.
“No need to save you, I suspect.” Preston’s words drummed around the clearing, its edge sinking into my skin.
I bit my tongue. “No,” I gritted, my voice hoarse as I twisted around, my arms bound behind my back.
The movement dragged the thorns deeper. They scraped along raw flesh, catching in the soft skin beneath my sleeves.
I hissed through my teeth as a fresh sting bloomed, sharp and hot.
The vines resisted, tightening like shackles, punishing every inch I moved.
My shoulders burned from the strain. My sight blurred, but I forced my chin higher.
“I thought so.” His smile was sharp, a flash of teeth in the dim light, reminiscent of a fox sizing up its prey.
Bending down, he retrieving my knife with fluid grace, his fingers brushing the blade as if it were a delicate artifact rather than a weapon. He didn’t even flinch as the nettle’s leaves caressed his skin, nor did he need to scratch.
I scowled. Of course he was immune to a plant that was as irritating as him.
“Shall we strike that deal, now?” he asked, casually turning my knife between his fingers. “I save you…again.” He mocked, his voice like curling smoke. “And you tell me what you’re so desperately searching for.”
My nostrils flared, my eyes narrowed, and a single tear broke free, tracing a hot, salty path down my cheek. It burned.
“Why don’t you tell me instead,” I rasped, “why every time I’m in trouble, it’s you who shows up?”
I ignored the bite of pain still searing through my palm as I tried to loosen the headstrong vines winding around my wrists like shackles. Every movement sent thorns dragging across torn skin, but I kept pulling anyway.
“Call it good luck,” he said lightly, clearly savouring the moment.
I forced a smile. It was anything but that.
Preston stepped closer, the glint of the knife catching faint light as he knelt.
He let the blade rest against the vine coiled tight around my thigh, just above the knee.
I went still, tension slicing through me sharper than any thorn.
My skin flushed with heat, the ache of the vines almost forgotten as the air stirred around us, forcing the sweet, earthy mix of evergreen and paper of his scent down my lungs.
“Is it still about your mother, poison?”
The wind hissed like it wanted a word too.
“I told you already,” I gritted, my throat dry.
“But did you really?” he murmured, dragging the knife higher. “Out here? In the woods?” Then, with a swift, precise movement, he cut the first Thorny Creeper.
It snapped apart with a satisfying rip, and the pressure on my thigh released instantly. A gasp escaped my lips as blood rushed back beneath my skin. I hadn’t even realized how tight it was, how much it had hurt until it was gone.
Preston’s dark green gaze met mine, deep and unnerving, then almost soft, like he couldn’t quite decide whether to be cruel or not.
And then he stepped back, just out of reach.
A slow smile tugged at his mouth, wicked and knowing.
Prick.
He was toying with me.
“I can help you,” he mused, his voice a velvet thread weaving through the crisp air.
He leaned lazily against a gnarled oak, gaze flicking to my knife in his grasp.
With deliberate care, he traced the carvings on the hilt—the small birds flying, the flowers caught in eternal bloom, and the butterflies.
I could draw them from memory. His lips curled into a half-smile, the kind that never reached his eyes.
“But only if you’re willing to barter for the truth. ”
I swallowed harshly, casting my gaze toward the sky.
The grey-blue was already inked by shadows.
Just how long was I out here? Time seemed to slip by faster at Thornhill, and even I didn’t want to be left vulnerable out here at night.
Especially not when I remembered Lilian's story of the woman who walked into these woods and was never seen again.
But it wasn’t just that. It was the throbbing fire in my wrists, the slow trickle of blood beneath my sleeves, the way the thorns had begun to feel like they were part of me now, threaded into my skin.
“Why do you even care?” I asked, still twisting against the vines, now at least free of one.
His brows twitched, surprised by the question, but the moment passed quickly. “I’ve got my reasons,” he said simply.
I blew out a slow breath, letting the fight drain from my shoulders. The vines were winning, my wrists felt like they were being chewed open. He had my knife. And the sky was turning.
“I was looking for a book,” I muttered through my teeth. “Tome of Fates.”
“Intriguing,” Preston echoed, his tone flat, but something in his eyes gleamed with a sharp, unreadable emotion. “And why here?” He took a step closer, his shadow swallowing me. His eyes flicked at the vines behind me.
I wet my lips. I was sent here by the ghost of my mum. The truth twisted on my tongue like a splinter.
“My mum told me about it... when she was alive,” I lied, the words sticky like honey.
Something flickered in his moss-colored eyes. Not disbelief, but not quite belief either. Like he was calculating.
Then, as if my answer had satisfied him enough, he gripped my arm and twisted me around. My jaw clenched. He wasn’t someone I would voluntarily turn my back on.
“See?” he whispered against my ear, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. “Wasn’t so difficult, was it?” Even through all the layers I had on, I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. With a swift motion, he severed the vines binding my wrists.
The release was immediate and blinding.
I gasped as blood rushed back into my hands, thorns tearing loose like fishhooks from my skin. The pain bloomed, burning, and I nearly staggered.
His fingers lingered just a second too long.
I shoved him away.
Then yanked the knife from his hand and slid it back into my pocket. My fingers shook.
He chuckled, low and melodic, infuriating.
I rubbed my wrists. The skin was torn in a dozen places, and a deep cut sliced across my right palm. The blood was a good reminder of my mistake. I wasn't cautious enough.
Preston turned, ripping off the last few entwined vines that had been blocking the entrance. The plants dropped in coils at his feet, most of them inked crimson by my blood. The mausoleum’s grey limestone walls slowly unravelled.
“Tu vivis, nos viximus, mox nobis iungeris,” he read the Latin inscription etched above the entrance. “You live, we lived, you’ll join us soon,” he translated. The words sent a chill down my spine.
I stepped past him, the fallen vines crunching beneath my boots as I stopped in front of the rust-eaten gate. Without thinking, I curled my fingers around the cold iron handle. Sharp pain bit into my fresh wound, the torn skin on my palm screaming. I winced, but didn’t let go.
With a hard yank, I dragged the gate open, and the hinges groaned like a yawn from something ancient that should have been left undisturbed.