Chapter 2
I had expected a butler, or a housekeeper—someone stern and disapproving who would take one look at my disheveled state and turn me away.
Instead, I found myself staring at the strangest person I had ever seen.
He was tall and thin, with skin that possessed an odd waxy quality beneath its greenish pallor, like flesh preserved too long in damp soil, rotten and altered by the darkness.
His face was smooth, almost ageless, his eyes dark and flat, reflecting light while revealing nothing behind them.
His hair hung limp, unnaturally coarse—more like dried kelp than anything that should grow from a human scalp.
He wore a simple black suit, perfectly pressed, and stood in the doorway without moving, without speaking, only watching me with that large, lifeless stare.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then tried again.
"I—I am here for an interview," I muttered, my voice smaller than I had intended. "For the assistant position. My name is Camellia Reed."
The man, if he was a man, did not respond. He did not smile or step aside. He merely continued to stand there, his stillness so complete he might have been carved and left to guard the threshold.
"Hawthorne."
The voice came from somewhere above, warm and low, edged with what might have been amusement.
"Let her in before she freezes to death on our doorstep."
The tall figure turned his head, the motion unnervingly exact, each degree of movement appeared measured before executed. After a considerable pause, he stepped aside.
I hesitated on the threshold, unease creeping up my spine as I studied him. There was a wrongness about him my mind refused to name, though my body seemed to recognize it all too well.
Monster, my companion said. Just like you.
I frowned as I stepped inside, choosing not to examine that assessment too closely.
Warmth struck me at once, overwhelming after the bitter cold. I blinked into the dimness as Hawthorne closed the door behind me.
The entrance hall was grand but unexpectedly ordinary.
Dark wood paneling stretched toward a sweeping staircase that curved upward into shadow.
A few landscape paintings adorned the walls, competently rendered yet wholly unremarkable.
The floor had been polished to a dull gleam, the runner worn in the center from years of foot traffic.
A hall table held a simple vase of dried flowers, their petals brown and papery with age.
They leaned toward the window with such foolish hope that I almost pitied them.
The interior held little of interest—no visible trace of Dr. Ambrose's controversial research, no cluttered chaos belonging to a bachelor scientist's dwelling. This orderly domesticity was almost disappointing in its conventionality.
The air smelled of wood smoke and beeswax polish, underlaid with notes of greenery—sweet and floral, out of place so early in the season. The scent tugged at the back of my mind, but before I had the opportunity to pursue the thought, Dr. Nicholas Ambrose appeared at the top of the stairs.
As he descended into the pale light filtering through the entrance hall windows, I forgot how to breathe.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the capable build of a man who worked with his hands as much as his mind.
Dark hair, thick and unruly, fell over his brow in a way that made him look perpetually disheveled despite the quality of his clothes.
His skin carried a warm, golden tone that spoke of long hours beneath glass and sun.
He looked nothing like the distant, controversial figure I had constructed from his published works—and far too much like someone I had no business reacting to so strongly.
Then I met his eyes.
Amber. Warm as honey held to lamplight.
The cold, bitter loneliness I knew so well surged through me without warning. It rose so sharply that I nearly staggered beneath it. I had no reason to miss him with such aching desperation, no reason to believe any essential part of me recognized him.
But I did.
The certainty terrified me almost as much as it confused me.
I stared, speechless, and rude, and entirely unable to stop myself.
He was handsome, undeniably so, a face that belonged in society portraits rather than dusty laboratories. I had expected him to be older, perhaps, more eccentric. It unsettled me, the disconnect between the man I had imagined and the one before me.
"Miss Reed," he said, his voice drawing me from my thoughts. "You are late."
"Yes,” I replied, disturbingly breathless. “I apologize. The storm—"
"Made travel difficult," he finished, lifting one hand in careless dismissal. "I assumed as much."
He reached the bottom of the stairs, never taking his attention from me. "Hawthorne, please take her coat."
The peculiar servant moved behind me, and I startled when cool hands touched my shoulders, helping me free of the heavy wool. Dr. Ambrose tracked the movement, pausing momentarily on my gloved hands as I pulled them from the sleeves.
Would he think it odd that I refused to remove them?
I groaned inwardly, wishing I had thought to layer my silks beneath the thick leathers.
His expression gave nothing away, though his gaze lingered there a moment too long before lifting to the ribbon around my throat. The instinct to cover it came swift and involuntary, a reflex I barely managed to suppress.
Dr. Ambrose's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, betraying the emotion caught behind his composure. There was a faint nick along the curve of his bone, I noticed, perhaps from shaving. I had the sudden urge to press my thumb against it until the wound opened again.
You want to know if he opens as beautifully as a flower, my companion mused, tasting the thought and appreciating the morbid detail.
"This way," he said, already turning down a corridor and scattering the image in his wake. "We will speak in my study."
I followed, aware of Hawthorne's soundless presence behind me and the quiet sorrow that seemed to deepen the farther we went.
The corridor maintained the same bland normalcy as the entrance hall. There were more paintings, a few pieces of antique, but well-kept furniture—nothing to suggest the occupant spent his days working with deadly botanical specimens.
Then he opened the door, and my opinion changed.
The study was everything I had imagined a scholar's sanctuary should be.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were crammed with volumes and loose papers that seemed to defy any organizational system.
A large desk lay buried beneath journals and notes.
Dozens of botanical sketches were scattered across the surface, chemical formulas scrawled in the margins.
A healthy fire crackled in the grate, throwing warm light onto tall windows overlooking the rain-soaked gardens beyond.
On tables pressed against the far wall, specimen jars were lined in neat rows, their contents suspended in preserving fluid.
Flowers were caught mid-bloom, petals frozen in various stages of unfurling.
Roots twisted and curled into impossible shapes, some still bearing fine tendrils.
Other things I could not immediately identify appeared to be growing despite being severed from any source of nutrition.
All were preserved and patiently still, caught between what they had been and what they would never become.
I understood the impulse—the desire to capture beauty before it faded, to hold a thing in its perfect moment rather than watch it change—yet there was an unease to these jars, the liminal quality of being suspended between life and death that felt deeply familiar now.
I tore my gaze away and turned toward the windows. Through the falling rain, barely visible, stood the skeletal frames of enormous greenhouses, their glass panels catching what little light the gray sky offered.
Darkness seeped in from the edges of my vision. I blinked against it, but the sensation only deepened. A prickle gathered at the base of my skull, and then—
Sunlight. Bright and warm, filtered through glass thick with condensation. The air was heavy and humid, alive with the scent of wet earth. Gentle hands touched mine, guiding me as we examined something delicate and luminous—a specimen that glowed with its own internal light.
The image fractured before I managed to grasp it, leaving only the impression that I had stood in that very room, looking out at those same greenhouses with someone whose presence had mattered.
"Please, sit," Dr. Ambrose said.
I turned to find him watching me with a frown that suggested this was not the first time he had said it.
I obeyed, lowering myself into the seat with more relief than I cared to admit.
My legs had begun to tremble—whether from the cold, from exhaustion, or from whatever had just happened, I could not say.
I pressed the lingering unease of the vision back into whatever recess it had escaped from and gathered myself.
This was not the moment to come undone. Everything I needed was in this room, dependent upon my ability to appear capable and normal.
At the moment, I was neither, but I was well practiced at pretending otherwise.
His attention roamed over me with clinical assessment, and I had the uncomfortable sensation of being examined, like a specimen under glass—something that might prove worth preserving or dissecting.
Then his gaze caught on my throat again.
He held on the green velvet for a fraction too long before looking away. When our eyes met again, I saw what looked almost like recognition and behind it, a sadness I could not make sense of.
I was certain we had never met before. I would have remembered someone who affected me as he did.
How could you? the voice responded, with its customary lack of charity. You barely remember yourself.
I pressed my lips into a firm line, ignoring my companion as I focused my attention on Dr. Ambrose—who, apparently, was already speaking.
“—and your résumé mentioned extensive field experience," he was saying.