+Excerpt+
The rain hadn’t stopped in two days. It hammered the conservatory glass like it wanted in, drowning out every sound except the creak of Mason’s boots pacing behind me.
“Funny,” he said, voice low, “how you were the only one who disappeared during dinner.”
I didn’t turn. “Funny how you keep noticing where I am.”
The Eclipsara’s empty pedestal loomed between us, a pale ring of pollen still clinging to the marble like the outline of a body.
Liora lingered in the doorway, watching us with that fox-like stillness she did so well. “Maybe,” she said, “we’re looking at this the wrong way. Whoever has the flower doesn’t need to run. They just need to talk.” Her eyes flicked to me. “Thirty seconds, and the rest of us will believe anything they say.”
The lights in the glass dome above us sputtered once, twice—then died, plunging the garden into darkness.
Something brushed my arm. A hand? A leaf?
And then, from somewhere in the blackness, a whisper:
“Breathe.”
