The scent of damp earth and decaying roses was a perfume she'd come to know intimately. Lilith Thorne knelt in the midnight garden of her inherited, crumbling estate, Thornwood, her hands filthy with soil, her black mourning dress soaked at the knees from the evening dew. Here, among the twisted, overgrown hedges and the gnarled, thorn-laden rose bushes that gave the place its name, she felt a strange, aching peace. It was better than the silence inside the manor, a silence so profound it seemed to swallow the echoes of her own breaths.
Her great-aunt's will had been a shock. The reclusive old woman had left everything to the niece she'd met only once in childhood. Along with the estate came a peculiar stipulation: Lilith must live at Thornwood for one full year, tending to the gardens, or forfeit everything to a mysterious third party. It was a cage, but it was a cage of her own, away from the pitying stares and hollow condolences after her parents' sudden death. A fresh start, shrouded in ivy and shadow.
As she pruned a particularly vicious-looking rose bush, the thorn sliced deep into her thumb. A single, perfect bead of blood welled up. "Damn it," she whispered, the sound swallowed by the oppressive quiet.
"The thorns here have a taste for blood. They always have."
The voice was like dark velvet poured over gravel, emerging from the shadows just beyond the reach of the old gas lamp she'd brought outside. Lilith jerked back, her heart slamming against her ribs. A man stood at the edge of the light, tall and impossibly still. He was dressed in dark, impeccably tailored clothing that seemed to drink the light. His hair was black as a raven's wing, his features sharp and achingly beautiful, but it was his eyes that held her frozen. They were the color of a winter sky at twilight, a pale, chilling grey that saw too much.
"Who are you?" she managed, scrambling to her feet, clutching her bleeding thumb. "This is private property."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, but it didn't reach those cold eyes. "I am Cassian. I… oversee the grounds. Your aunt employed me. I ensure the gardens grow as they should."
Lilith had not been told of any groundskeeper. There was no caretaker's cottage, no sign of another soul. "I wasn't informed. It's very late."
"The best time for tending to things that prefer the dark," he said, his gaze dropping to her bleeding hand. He took a slow step forward. "May I?"
Before she could refuse, he was there, closer than anyone had been in months. He didn't touch her, but he lifted his own hand, and a single, night-blooming jasmine flower—impossibly out of season—seemed to unfurl from the shadow of his palm. He plucked a petal and, with a reverence that made her breath catch, pressed it gently against the cut. A shocking, cool numbness spread from the wound, and the bleeding stopped instantly.
"There," he murmured, his voice a low hum that vibrated in her bones. "Thornwood requires care, Miss Thorne. And sacrifice. Not everyone is suited to its… particular needs."
He retreated into the darkness as silently as he had appeared, leaving her alone with the scent of jasmine and her own racing heart. That night, for the first time since arriving, Lilith dreamed not of empty halls, but of pale grey eyes watching her from a forest of blood-red roses. She woke feeling not afraid, but strangely seen. And in the hollow of her chest, a dangerous curiosity began to bloom.