Still, I whisper under my breath, “I see you.”
The Grove doesn’t answer.
But I swear… the vine curls just a little tighter, like it heard me anyway.
CHAPTER 4
THORN
The Grove warns me the moment she steps over the line.
But I’ve already been watching her for an hour.
She works in silence, save for the occasional murmur to a basil plant or a half-hearted hum under her breath. Her hands are careful. She cradles roots like they're glass. It’s not magic—not the kind that sings through air or warps the land. But there’s something in her rhythm that feels older than that. Truer.
She squats next to the mint bed, cheeks flushed from the sun, sweat shining along her collarbone. When she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear with a dirt-smudged hand, I feel the Grove shift.
The vines near her lean forward slightly.
I frown.
The Grove doesn’tlean.
It listens. It judges. Sometimes it accepts.
But this feels like a reaching.
She laughs softly at a tomato plant that refuses to climb its trellis. Then she glances over her shoulder—toward the Grove—and her expression changes.
Like she knows someone’s watching.
She doesn’t see me.
But she feels it.
I draw deeper into the shadow of a high-limbed willow, arms crossed over my chest, breath slow. I tell myself I’m waiting for her to cross the line again. That I’m standing guard. Nothing more.
But even I don’t believe that.
I should turn away.
Instead, I watch.
And when she steps toward the vine again—the one she touched days ago—I do not stop her.
A tremor rolls beneath the roots, subtle as a sigh. The vines coil tighter, the elder branches creak like old joints waking from sleep. She's near again.
The one called Clara.
She doesn't even try to hide it anymore. Each day, closer. First her fingers. Then her voice. Then her scent—lemons, soil, and something like memory.
And now, her footfall presses soft against the outer ward stones like an apology before a crime.
I watch from the high boughs of the ward-tree, bark folded over my arms like armor, eyes burning low beneath the mossed hood of my face.
She’s humming again.
Like she thinks the trees are just trees.
