I hear it from deep beneath the ward line, buried in silence, where I’ve hidden for days—maybe weeks. Time here stretches like vine tendrils. I measure its passage by how long I can go without imagining her voice.
Apparently, not long.
“Thorn,” she whispers again, and my name in her mouth burns worse than sunlight.
She doesn’t know I’m this close.
She wouldn’t guess I’m curled into the root-hollow of the heart tree, bracing myself against the ache of staying away. She thinks I’m gone. And maybe I should be.
But Ican’tbe.
Not when she’s crying to the soil. Not when she’s begging for something she can’t prove exists.
I feel her pain like it’s my own.
Because it is.
She thinks this is about saving the Grove.
But it’s about more than land or magic or moss.
It’s about a promise.
A quiet one she made to a father who believed in things no one else did. And now, she’s trying to carry that belief forward—with nothing but dirt under her nails and a binder of science no one will read right.
And I…
I want to help her.
More than that, I want tobe seen.
By her.
Not as the monster in the woods. Not as some cursed relic of old magics.
But as the thing thatstayed.
Still, I do nothing.
Because stepping forward, revealing myself to the inspector, the board, the town—that would break everything I’ve been built to preserve. I am the veil. I am the mystery. The protection isme.
And if I give that up…
The Grove becomes a tourist sign.
A project.
A pipeline to greed.
The Grove is old.
But not strong.
Not anymore.
And Clara… she’s too close already. Too tangled in the roots. Too soft and bright andseen. If I step into her world, I risk burning it down behind me.
I close my eyes.
