TEN LUNARIA
TEN
LUNARIA
She pushed through Town Hall’s front door and made her way to the mayor’s office. The assistant at the desk outside gave her a startled look.
“Ms. Reed. Do you have an appointment?”
“No.” Lunaria kept walking. “But I promise, he’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
She pushed open the office door without knocking.
Hux looked up from a desk covered in paperwork. For a fraction of a second, emotion flickered across his face—surprise, pleasure, heat—before the politician’s mask slammed back into place.
“Ms. Reed.” His voice was perfectly controlled. “I don’t believe you have an appointment.”
“I don’t believe I need one.” She shut the door behind her. “Not for this.”
He leaned back in his chair, studying her.
But his gaze didn’t hold judgment. It held something different entirely. Awareness that made her skin prickle.
“You got my note,” she said.
“I did.” A beat. “The part about the shoulders was particularly businesslike.”
He gestured to the chair across from his desk. “Sit. Tell me what you found.”
Lunaria dropped into the chair, pulling the journal from her bag. She set it on his desk, open to the first page she’d decoded.
“Deia Tullio. The witch who maintained the gardens before me. Everyone says the official story.” She tapped the journal. “This says otherwise.”
Hux’s jaw tightened. He reached for the journal, then paused. “May I?”
“Go ahead. It’s in celestial cipher, though. I can translate if you need—”
“Yes, I need you to tell me what it says.”
She did. Everything she’d decoded—the Convergence warnings, the mentions of Cornelius, the void roses, the references to stolen potential and cursed families. She watched his face as she spoke, watched the way his features shifted from polite attention to darkness. Personal stakes.
“The Holt family,” he said when she finished. “The journal specifically mentions my family.”
“Multiple times. Details about a sacrifice. A binding that required an anchor.” She leaned forward. “Hux, I saw something in your star chart. A concealment on your fate line—darkness sitting directly on your potential, blocking it. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look surprised. Just nodded, slow and heavy, like a man having his worst fears confirmed.
“There isn’t one.”
She went still.
“That’s what I’m telling you. It’s not nothing—it’s a presence. A darkness eating what should be there. Someone did this to your family, Hux. Deliberately. This Cornelius person, whoever he was.”
“Cornelius Marsh.” The name came out rough. “My great-great-grandfather’s business partner. He married into the family.”
Lunaria’s blood jumped. “You know him?”
“I know of him. The Marsh family was influential in Haven Shores for generations. There are records, documents, portraits in the historical society.” His hands were flat on the desk, fingers spread.
Controlled. Barely. “If crimes occurred sixty years ago that involve my family, there will be documentation.”
“That’s why I’m here.” She met his gaze, held it. “I need access to your archives. Everything you have on the gardens, on Deia Tullio, on this Convergence she kept writing about. Council minutes. Family records. Whatever’s buried in your historical files.”
“That’s a significant request.”
“I know.”
“Those archives aren’t open to the public. Some of those documents haven’t been accessed in decades.”
“I know that too.”
Silence stretched between them. His gaze never wavered from hers. She could see the calculation happening—the mayor weighing protocols against necessity, duty against personal stakes.
“I’d like to know what's going to happen before it happens again.”
His eyes dropped to the desk. “I don’t know anything.
” The words came out rough. “That’s the problem.
I’ve felt unfinished my entire life, and I’ve never known why.
My father gets strange whenever anyone mentions the gardens or the old families.
He tried to talk me out of hiring you for this project. ”
“Your father knows the truth.”
“Probably. He won’t say what.” Hux stood abruptly, crossing to a filing cabinet against the wall. “The archives are in the basement. Old records, council minutes, family documents going back to the founding of Haven Shores.”
He pulled out a ring of keys and turned to face her.
“I’ll take you there myself.”
Lunaria blinked. “You don’t have to—”
“Cornelius Marsh was connected to my family. If he committed crimes—if my ancestors were involved in whatever happened to Deia Tullio—” His voice tightened. “I want to know. I need to know.”
She stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Then, let’s find out.”
The basement archives were exactly what she’d expected. Cramped. Dusty. Lit by flickering fluorescent lights that made everything look slightly sickly. Filing cabinets lined the walls, interspersed with banker’s boxes stacked high enough to create narrow corridors between them.
“Charming,” Lunaria said, eyeing a cobweb that stretched between two shelving units. “Very atmospheric.”
“Not many people come down here.” Hux moved ahead of her, navigating the maze of boxes with the confidence of someone who’d been here before. “Most of the recent records are digitized. These are the originals—and the older documents that were never entered into the system.”
“How old are we talking?”
“Some of these go back to the 1800s.”
She followed him deeper into the archives, acutely aware of how the space narrowed around them. The corridors between filing cabinets were barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. When she brushed against a stack of boxes and had to sidestep, her shoulder pressed against his arm.
Neither of them pulled away.
“Here.” He stopped at a section marked with faded labels. Council Records, 1950--1970. “This should cover the period around Deia’s death. If there were council meetings about the gardens or the Convergence, they’d be documented here.”
He pulled open a filing drawer, revealing folders stuffed with yellowed papers. Lunaria leaned in to look, and the movement brought her close enough to catch his scent. Warmth and cleanliness, with an undertone of spice. No cologne—just him.
Focus. Dead witches. Mysterious curses. Very serious business.
“What am I looking for?” Hux asked.
“Anything about the gardens. About Deia Tullio or Cornelius Marsh. About an entity called the Hollow King.”
He went still. “The what?”
“The Hollow King. Deia mentioned it in one of her entries—an entity that feeds on potential, on futures, on fated bonds. I think that’s what’s been consuming your family’s capacity for mates.” She glanced at him. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No.” But his voice was strange. Distant. “Nothing.”
They worked in silence, pulling folders, scanning documents, setting aside anything that looked relevant. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Dust motes drifted in the stale air. Twice, their hands brushed while reaching for the same file. Twice, neither of them commented on it.
The tension was different. Less antagonistic. Tension simmered beneath the surface—awareness, maybe. Recognition. The sense that they were both reaching for answers that might change everything.
“Here.” Lunaria pulled a folder from the stack she’d been reviewing. “Council minutes from October 1964. There’s a section on the gardens.”
She read aloud, translating the formal bureaucratic language into plain language.
The council had voted to commission an independent review of the Celestial Botanical Gardens’ magical infrastructure.
Concerns had been raised about the gardens’ warning systems activating without apparent cause.
Deia Tullio had testified that she believed a supernatural threat was approaching and that the community should prepare.
“Her testimony was dismissed,” Lunaria said, scanning ahead. “The council voted four to one to table her concerns pending further evidence.”
“Who cast the dissenting vote?”
She checked the record. “Georgia Gentry. Panther elder.”
“Wyatt’s aunt.” Hux’s jaw tightened. “She’s been evasive about the old days. Gets strange whenever anyone mentions Deia or the gardens.”
“Because she believed Deia and no one else did.” Lunaria flipped to the next page. “There’s more. A month later—November 1964—Deia died. The council voted to close the gardens pending the appointment of a new caretaker.”
“A caretaker who never came.”
“Correct. The gardens were never reopened. They just... sat there.” She set down the folder, frustration mounting. “Someone covered this up. Deia was warning the council about danger, and a month later she was dead, and no one ever followed up on what she’d found.”
“The vote to dismiss her testimony.” Hux was frowning at the council minutes. “Look at the names of the council members who voted against her.”
Lunaria looked. Her blood went cold.
Three of the four names were unfamiliar. But the fourth—
“Cornelius Marsh.”
“He was on the council.” Hux’s voice was flat. Hard. “He voted to ignore the warning. And a month later, the witch who raised the alarm was dead.”
They stared at each other across the dusty archive, the implications hanging heavy between them.
“This isn’t just a curse,” Lunaria said slowly. “This is a cover-up. Whatever Deia discovered, whatever she tried to warn people about—Cornelius Marsh silenced her. And then he buried it so deep that no one’s found the truth in sixty years.”
“Until you.” Hux’s gaze was intense. Searching. “Until you showed up and started waking the gardens.”
“They were waiting.” She thought about the way the soil had reached for her magic, desperate and starving.
The way the flowers had bloomed at her touch.
The way the Warning Bells had started chiming the moment she’d arrived.
“The gardens have been trying to tell someone what happened. They just needed a celestial witch who could hear them.”
“And now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here.” She gathered the relevant folders into a stack. “I need to take these with me. Cross-reference them with Deia’s journals. There’s more in her workshop—star charts, research notes, instruments I haven’t had time to catalog yet.”
“I’ll help.”
She looked up, surprised. “You don’t have to—”
“This involves my family.” He stepped closer, and the narrow corridor felt impossibly small. “My ancestors. Whatever was done sixty years ago, whatever curse has been eating my bloodline—I’m not going to sit in my office while you uncover it alone.”
His proximity was doing things to her concentration. His heat. The intensity in his gaze. The way his body seemed to curve toward hers without either of them consciously moving.
“This could get dangerous,” she heard herself say. “Whatever’s been feeding on your family—whatever killed Deia—it’s still here. The void roses have been blooming black since I arrived. That means the threat is still watching.”
“All the more reason not to let you investigate alone.”
“I’ve been handling things alone for years.”
“And now you don’t have to.”
The words hit her somewhere soft. Somewhere she’d armored for years.
Don’t. Don’t read into this. He’s just being a responsible mayor. A concerned citizen. A man whose family secrets you’re about to dig up.
But she couldn’t quite make herself believe it. Not with the way he was looking at her. Not with the way her blood was rushing.
“Fine.” She stepped back, breaking the spell. “Tomorrow night. Meet me at the gardens after dark—that’s when the celestial instruments are most active. Bring whatever historical records you can find about Cornelius Marsh.”
“I’ll be there.”
She gathered the folders and headed for the stairs, acutely aware of him following behind her. In the narrow stairwell, their shoulders brushed again. Neither of them moved away.
Reluctant partnership. That’s all this is. Two people with overlapping interests working toward a common goal.
But her heart wasn’t buying it. Her heart was doing a foolish and hopeful thing, reaching toward a man whose fate was consumed by darkness, whose potential for love had been stolen before he was born.
You’re supposed to be running. Stay detached. Stay temporary. Stay safe.
But for the first time in longer than she could remember, running didn’t feel right.
Haven Shores was trying to warn her. The gardens were screaming warnings she was only beginning to understand. And somewhere in the darkness, something ancient and hungry was stirring.
She couldn’t run from that. Wouldn’t.
Whatever was coming, she was going to face it.
And apparently, she wasn’t going to face it alone.
“Tomorrow night,” Hux said as she reached the front door. “Eight o’clock.”
She turned back, found him watching her with an intensity she couldn’t quite read.
“Don’t be late.”
His mouth curved. Just slightly. Just enough to make her stomach flip.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Garden Witch.”
She walked out into the afternoon sun, the stolen files in her bag and the warmth of reluctant partnership lodged beneath her ribs.