The fluorescent lights of the rec center’s multipurpose room hummed with a sterile, soul-sucking buzz that felt like a personal insult to everything Rowan stood for.
It was a space designed for utility, not life. Beige linoleum floors, stacked plastic chairs, and the faint, lingering scent of floor wax and stale coffee.
Outside, the last rays of the setting sun painted the Brooklyn sky in shades of bruised plum and fiery orange.
Inside, under this flat, artificial glare, Rowan felt pinned to a specimen board.
She sat at a long folding table next to Maria, the community board’s septuagenarian president, and tried not to shred the paper cup in her hands.
Across from them sat the rest of the board: a tired-looking accountant, a pragmatic deli owner, and David Henderson, a retired city planner whose vote often acted as the board’s stubborn fulcrum.
They were good people, but they were also people who understood budgets and bottom lines far better than they understood the language of soil and sun.
Kael stood near the back wall, a silent, statuesque pillar of support.
His presence was a strange comfort. Since the day they’d saved the roses, an invisible thread of energy had seemed to connect them, a low thrum of awareness that was both unnerving and deeply grounding.
He’d insisted on coming tonight, his expression grim. “They won’t play fair,” was all he’d said, and the quiet certainty in his voice had chilled her.
The meeting had been a slow, agonizing crawl through zoning ordinances and budget reports. Now, the final item on the agenda hung in the air: “Vex Development: Final Land Use Proposal.”
Just as Maria cleared her throat to begin, the double doors at the back of the room swung open.
The woman who entered did not walk so much as glide, her presence sucking all the oxygen from the space.
She was tall and severe, dressed in a charcoal-grey suit so sharply tailored it could have drawn blood. Her hair was a sheet of polished obsidian, her face a collection of striking angles.
But it was her eyes—the color of a winter lake, intelligent and utterly devoid of warmth—that held the room captive.
“Apologies for the interruption,” she said, her voice smooth as polished marble. “I’m Morwen, CEO of Vex Development. I felt a proposal of this magnitude warranted a personal touch.”
A murmur rippled through the small audience of community members.
This wasn’t some faceless corporate drone; this was the queen herself, descended from her glass tower.
From his position at the back, Kael went rigid.
It was not her appearance that struck him, but the aura that coiled around her like an invisible serpent.
Her human glamour was flawless, a masterpiece of deception woven with threads of ambition and power. But beneath it, he felt the familiar, chilling thrum of the Unseelie Court. It was cold, predatory, and reeked of ancient shadow and decay.
The blight on the roses had been a test. This was the offensive. His mission had just escalated from a covert retrieval to a territorial dispute with a rival power.
Morwen smiled, a precise, bloodless gesture, and took the floor.
She didn’t use the rickety podium but stood before the table, her confidence an undeniable force field. “Let’s not waste each other’s time with sentimentalities,” she began, her gaze sweeping over the board members before landing, with surgical precision, on Rowan.
“Your garden is… charming. A noble effort. But it occupies a prime piece of real estate that could be serving the entire community, not just a handful of hobbyists.”
She gestured to an aide, who began handing out glossy brochures. “Vex Development is prepared to make a final, non-negotiable offer of four million dollars for the lot.”
A collective gasp went through the room. Four million. The number was obscene, fantastical.
“Furthermore,” Morwen continued, her voice resonating with false generosity, “we will fund the construction of a brand-new, three-story community center on the adjacent property. Complete with a daycare, a tech lab for students, and senior services. We will also establish a one-hundred-thousand-dollar annual scholarship fund for local high school graduates. All we ask in return is that you see reason.”
She laid it all out with the cold, irrefutable logic of a predator.
Money. Progress. The future.
Against that, Rowan’s patch of green earth suddenly seemed fragile, selfish. She saw it on their faces. The deli owner’s eyes were wide with the possibilities.
The accountant was already doing sums in his head. Even Maria looked conflicted.
David Henderson, the retired planner, studied the brochure, his brow furrowed. “That is… a significant offer,” he said, the words heavy with pragmatism.
“It’s a bribe,” Rowan snapped, her voice sharper than she intended.
She stood up, her hands flat on the table to keep them from shaking. “You can’t put a price on this. That garden isn’t just ‘a handful of hobbyists.’ It’s a food source for three local shelters. It’s an outdoor classroom for P.S. 142. It’s the only green space for six square blocks where kids can learn what a real tomato tastes like and where elders can find a moment of peace. You can’t build that in a lab.”
Morwen gave her a look of pitying condescension. “Ms. Finch, nostalgia is a luxury. Progress is a necessity. Your garden can be moved. A community’s future cannot.”
“You don’t move a living ecosystem!” Rowan’s voice rose, filled with the desperate passion of a defender at the gates. “You don’t rip out its heart and expect it to survive!”
The word ‘heart’ hung in the air, and Kael felt a jolt, as if she had spoken his deepest secret aloud. He watched Morwen’s eyes flicker with something cold and proprietary.
She knew. Of course, she knew.
The Heartseed was the real prize. The buildings, the money—they were all just tools to excavate it.
The board members began to murmur amongst themselves.
The argument was cleaving them in two. The promise of millions was a powerful siren song, drowning out Rowan’s heartfelt plea.
Kael watched Rowan’s shoulders slump slightly as she realized she was losing. Her face was pale with fury and a dawning, heartbreaking despair.
He saw Henderson lean toward the accountant, pointing at a figure in the Vex proposal, his expression one of reluctant concession. The fulcrum was tipping.
A cold, unfamiliar rage surged through Kael. His mission was to protect the Heartseed until he could claim it for the Silverwood Court.
If Morwen and the Unseelie got their claws on it, his world would have no hope left at all. It was his duty to intervene.
A simple act of preservation. That was the reason.
But as he looked at Rowan, standing alone against the tide, her fierce spirit radiating a light that rivaled any Fae glamour, another truth burned through him.
He could not stand by and watch this soulless predator destroy her.
He could not let that cold, dismissive smile be the thing that broke Rowan Finch. The fierce, unexpected protectiveness he felt for her was a fire in his veins, overriding protocol, overriding caution.
It was a feeling more potent than duty.
He made his choice.
His eyes found David Henderson.
The man was glancing around the room, his gaze troubled, seeking confirmation. Kael met his look. He didn’t move, didn’t speak aloud.
He simply focused his will, drawing on the deep, quiet magic of the Seelie Court—the magic of growth, persuasion, and clarity. He let a sliver of it cross the room, a shimmering, invisible thread of intent.
It wasn’t a command.
Unseelie compelled with dominance and fear. Seelie guided.
He didn’t whisper in Henderson’s mind; he simply planted a seed of an idea, cloaked in the man’s own voice and reason.
Look past the numbers, the suggestion bloomed in Henderson’s consciousness. Think of the roots. Think of the foundation. What is a community without a heart? What is progress if it leaves a void? You are a planner. You know that some things, once destroyed, can never be rebuilt.
Henderson blinked, his focus shifting.
His eyes unfocused for a bare second as the foreign thought took root and became his own. He looked from the glossy brochure to Rowan’s impassioned, worried face.
The conflict in his expression softened, replaced by a sudden, firm resolution.
Maria tapped her pen on the table. “David? Your thoughts? A motion to accept the offer for a formal vote is on the table.”
Henderson straightened his tie.
He cleared his throat and looked directly at Morwen. “Ms. Morwen, your offer is… generous. But this board cannot be swayed by generosity alone. We are stewards of this community. And that garden,” he said, his voice gaining a surprising strength, “is more than a line item on a balance sheet. It is an anchor. To remove it would be an act of profound irresponsibility.”
He turned to Maria. “I move to table this offer indefinitely.”
The deli owner’s jaw dropped. Rowan stared, speechless.
“Seconded,” Maria said immediately, a relieved smile spreading across her face. She banged her small wooden gavel. “Motion carries. Vex Development’s proposal is tabled. This meeting is adjourned.”
For a single, silent moment, Morwen’s perfect corporate mask fractured.
A flash of pure, venomous fury contorted her features, her eyes narrowing into icy slits. And her glare wasn’t for Henderson, or for Rowan.
It was aimed directly at the back of the room, straight at Kael. It was a look of recognition, of challenge. I see you, princeling.
Then, just as quickly, the mask was back in place.
She gave the board a tight, dismissive nod. “A shortsighted decision,” she said, her voice dangerously soft. “You will regret it.”
Without another word, she turned and swept from the room, leaving a palpable chill in her wake.
The tension broke.
Community members surged forward to clap Rowan on the back. She accepted their congratulations in a daze, her mind still reeling from the sudden, miraculous reversal.
Her eyes found Kael, who was now pushing away from the wall.
He walked toward her, his face an unreadable mask, but his eyes held a depth she couldn’t quite fathom.
“Thank you for being here,” she said, her voice breathy with relief. “I don’t know what happened. I thought we’d lost.”
“You were very persuasive,” Kael said.
The words felt like ash in his mouth. He had won.
He had protected the Heartseed. He had protected her.
But the victory was a lie, bought with a magic she knew nothing about. It was a violation hidden inside a gift, and the weight of it settled in his chest, heavy and cold as a stone.
He had protected his mission, he told himself again.
But the image that burned in his mind was not of the garden’s magical core, but of Rowan’s defiant, luminous face, and he knew, with a certainty that terrified him, that he would do it again just to keep her from breaking.