The three days that followed were a strange, suspended breath.
The garden, still bearing the scars of Morwen’s assault, became a fortress.
The air hummed with a tension that was part fear, part fierce determination, a fusion of ancient magic and modern grit.
The world outside the wrought iron fence continued its oblivious rhythm—the rumble of the subway, the distant wail of a siren, the laughter of kids playing stickball in the street. But inside, we were preparing for a war no one else could see.
They worked from dawn until the streetlights cast long, skeletal shadows across the soil.
Kael moved with a fluid grace that belied the exhaustion etched around his silver eyes, carving intricate, spiraling symbols into the oak fence posts.
As his knife bit into the wood, the symbols pulsed with a soft, pearlescent light before fading, leaving behind an invisible hum of power that made the hairs on Rowan’s arms stand up. Ancient Fae wards, he’d called them.
A defense against the dark.
Liam, ever the pragmatist, was their modern-day druid.
He ran wires along the base of the fence, connecting a series of motion-activated floodlights he’d modified with UV emitters. “Unseelie hate pure, concentrated light,” he’d muttered, stripping a wire with his teeth. “And I’ve rigged the irrigation system. A flick of this switch,” he pointed to a rugged, waterproof panel he’d installed near the shed, “and every sprinkler head will spray a mist of cold iron filings and salt. A chemical burn for Fae physiology.”
He and Kael had formed a truce born of necessity.
They worked in a tandem of near-silent understanding, a prince of a dying world and a journalist from Flatbush, their expertise overlapping in the strange new territory of our battlefield.
Rowen saw Liam watch Kael sometimes, his expression a complex mix of suspicion and dawning respect.
Her own role was twofold. By day, she was the garden’s healer.
She moved from bed to bed, hands hovering over the blighted leaves and broken stems. The raw magic of the Heartseed now answered her call with an intuitive ease, flowing from her palms in waves of verdant energy.
The garden was responding, its life force stubbornly reasserting itself.
But when the sun began to dip below the brownstones, her training began.
“Your Fae heritage is a whisper, not a shout,” Kael explained on the first evening, his voice low and serious.
We stood in the center of the garden, near the thrumming, hidden Heartseed. “The seed’s power awakened it. But an awakened power without control is just a weapon pointed at yourself.”
He taught me to shield. Not with wards carved in wood, but with will forged in thought.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured, his hands gently taking mine. His skin was cool, a stark contrast to the thrum of energy that always sparked between us.
“Picture your mind as a quiet pool of water. Morwen will try to break the surface, to send ripples of fear and doubt. You cannot let her. You must become still. Unbreakable.”
I tried, but my thoughts were a frantic storm. Images of Morwen’s cruel smile, of Kael’s betrayal, of the garden withering to black dust.
“I can’t,” I whispered, my own frustration a bitter taste.
“Yes, you can.” His thumbs stroked the backs of my hands. “You are not just the keeper of this garden, Rowan. You are the garden. You are stubborn, and resilient, and you grow in the most unforgiving of places. Use that.”
His belief in me was a tangible thing. I took a deep breath, picturing not a pool of water, but the deep, dark soil beneath my feet.
Rich, complex, and full of life. I imagined my consciousness as a network of roots, digging deep, anchoring myself to the power of the earth. When I opened my eyes, Kael was smiling, a faint, real smile that lit his face from within.
“There,” he said softly. “I can feel it. A wall of living stone and ivy.”
He taught me to listen, to extend my senses beyond sight and sound and feel the life of the city.
He’d press his palm to the small of my back, a point of anchor and focus. “Reach out,” he’d say. “Feel the sap in the trees down the block. The pulse of the water in the pipes beneath the street. The shared dream of a thousand people sleeping in their apartments.”
And slowly, I did. It was overwhelming at first, a chaotic symphony of life.
But within it, I found a pattern, an interconnectedness that I’d only ever felt within the garden’s fence. I was teaching him, too, though I didn’t realize it at first.
One afternoon, Mrs. Garcia from two buildings over appeared at the gate, holding a foil-covered casserole dish. “You three look like you could use a real meal,” she said, her eyes crinkling. “My son says you’re protecting this place from those corporate vultures. This is from my kitchen. To keep your strength up.”
Kael stiffened, his Fae courtliness making him uncertain how to react to such a simple, unguarded act of generosity.
I took the dish, the warmth seeping through the foil. “Thank you, Elena. That’s… incredibly kind.”
As she left, Kael stared after her. “She asks for nothing in return?”
“That’s what community is,” I said, peeling back the foil to reveal fragrant chicken and rice. “We look out for each other. It’s not about transactions or alliances of convenience. It’s just… what people do.”
He watched as I divided the meal onto three mismatched plates from the shed.
He ate slowly, thoughtfully, as if tasting not just the food but the intent behind it. It was in these small moments that he learned about my world—its resilience, its messy, beautiful, human strength.
He saw that power didn’t just come from ancient seeds or celestial courts, but from a casserole dish passed over a fence.
On the third night, the eve of the alignment, a profound stillness settled over us. The last ward was carved, the last wire connected.
Liam clapped his hands together, dusting them off. “That’s it. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.” He looked from me to Kael, his gaze lingering. “Get some rest. I’ll be back before dawn.” He gave my shoulder a tight squeeze, a gesture that conveyed everything he couldn’t say. Be safe. I believe in you. Don’t let that Fae prince get you killed.
Then he was gone, and the silence he left behind was vast and heavy.
The air was cooling, carrying the scent of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine.
The Fae wards cast a faint, silvery sheen on the leaves, and Liam’s solar-powered LEDs glowed like captured stars along the path. It was beautiful and terrifying, our sanctuary-turned-fortress.
Kael stood by the rose bushes, his hand hovering over one of the blooms he had saved. “They remember you,” I said, coming to stand beside him. “The roses. They feel safer when you’re near.”
He turned to me, the faint light catching the sorrow and resolve in his eyes. “And you, Rowan? Do you feel safer?”
The question hung between us, honest and raw.
All the pain of his betrayal was still there, a scar on my heart. But the man who stood before me now wasn’t the desperate thief who had entered my life.
He was a warrior who had taken a blow for me, a prince who had humbled himself, a partner who had trusted me with the fate of his world.
“I do,” I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. “Which is completely insane.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I believe that is the defining feature of our relationship.”
We walked to the old stone bench at the heart of the garden. We sat, not touching, the space between us charged with everything that was about to happen.
“Tell me about it,” I said. “The Silverwood Court. What is it really like?”
He looked up at the star-dusted sky, a profound sadness in his expression. “It is… quiet now. A place of elegant decay. Like a grand ballroom where the music has faded and the dancers have all gone home. It is beautiful, but it is the beauty of a sunset. An ending. We were so bound by tradition, by the old ways, that we forgot how to grow.”
He turned his gaze to me. “You… this garden… you are all growth. Stubborn, chaotic, magnificent life. You fight for every inch of sunlight.”
My heart ached for him, for the home he was losing, for the burden he carried. “We might not make it through tomorrow,” I said, the words tasting like ash.
“I know.” He finally reached across the space between us, his fingers gently tangling with mine.
His hand was warm now, filled with a steady, living heat. “But if this is the last night of my life, I am glad I am spending it here, with you.”
The dam of my resolve broke. Tears I hadn’t allowed myself to shed welled in my eyes. He pulled me closer, and I leaned my head against his shoulder, breathing in his scent of ozone and wild greenery.
He wrapped his arm around me, holding me not with the desperation of our first kiss, but with a quiet, solid strength that felt like an anchor in a raging sea.
“I was so lost, Rowan,” he confessed into my hair, his voice thick with emotion. “My duty was a cage. I thought stealing your garden’s heart was the only way to save my people. I never imagined I would find my own heart here instead.”
I lifted my head, my hand coming up to cup his jaw. The faint light illuminated the silver streaks in his dark hair, the sincerity that shone from his eyes.
There were no more lies between us. No more glamours.
“Kael,” I said, my voice shaking slightly. “I love you.”
The words felt both momentous and utterly simple, a truth that had taken root in the broken soil of my heart.
A shudder went through him, a release of some long-held tension.
He brought his other hand up to cover mine, pressing my palm against his cheek. “And I love you, Rowan Finch,” he said, his voice raw with a love that felt as ancient and powerful as the magic humming beneath us. “More than my crown, more than my court, more than life itself.”
He leaned in and kissed me.
It wasn’t a kiss of frantic passion or desperate discovery. It was a kiss of quiet certainty, a vow made in the face of annihilation. It was a promise that whatever happened when the sun rose, we would face it together.
We stayed like that for a long time, holding each other as the city slept. Above us, a single star near the moon began to burn with a brighter, colder light.
The celestial alignment was beginning. The storm was here.