Dawn and Marjory moved to the parlour side of the cottage. Dawn curled up in an armchair and Marjory dropped a blanket over her. Then the older woman carried over the tea and biscuits before settling down in the other chair.

The nurse talked until her throat dried out and their tea went cold. She told of events from the day a twenty-three-year-old Marjory first came to Ravenswing to be the constant companion of a grief-stricken Lettie.

She narrated how a few weeks later, a tiny babe was abandoned on the back lawn amid the autumn leaves. Ava had given birth to Elijah and then left him for his uncle to find, uncaring that he suffered in the chill air.

As the years wound by, Ava’s shadow spread over the estate with her black python vine. Lettie screamed of Ava’s tendrils in her mind, burrowing deep and tearing her apart. The young woman’s madness ensured she could never usurp Ava as heart of Ravenswing and custodian of the Ravenswood tree.

Before Dawn realised, full dark had fallen outside the window and a knock sounded at the door. Her mind swirled with forty years of history, the estate’s downfall, and how Jasper had struggled to hold together family and the wider community even as Ava sought to destroy it. The other woman seemed more like a jealous child with a toy that no longer held her interest but who also didn’t want anyone else to play with it.

“That’ll be Hector with dinner,” Marjory said as she rose from the table.

The loyal retainer had a far bigger tray this time, carrying dinner for three – both women and the wolfhound. Hector winked at the nurse as he stepped inside and placed the tray on the table. “Can’t have my favourite girl wasting away. I do appreciate a woman with curves.”

Marjory rolled her eyes, but a smile appeared on her face. “Get away with you, you old dog.”

Dawn smiled to watch the two of them. The affection for each other simmered under their good-natured banter and grumping. They did deserve to share their twilight years together. “I have made Marjory talk for hours, I do hope I didn’t exhaust her.”

Marjory laughed. “Now don’t you go encouraging him, Miss Dawn. Next he’ll want to get all handsy and check my curves are still in place.”

Hector’s face lit up. He extended long arms and wriggled even longer fingers toward the nurse. “Oh, yes. Just a quick squeeze to reassure myself everything is still as it should be.”

Marjory giggled and swatted his hands away with the tea towel. “Get out and leave us womenfolk alone.”

Hector heaved a great sigh and his hands dropped to his sides. “I only have your best interests at heart.”

The nurse pushed her old beau out the door and shut it firmly. Then she drew the bolt to ensure they didn’t have any unexpected visitors during the night.

She took the dog’s bowl and placed it on the floor. Then she carried a bowl of broth over to Dawn. “Get that into you, then back to bed. You need your sleep so you can regain your strength if we are to tackle Ava.”

Dawn stared at the hearty mixture with chunks of meat and vegetables in a rich soup. “I hope there is enough for both of us. If you were to faint, Hector would never forgive me.”

The next day, Elijah visited with a chessboard under his arm and a frown on his brow.

“I refuse to play with you if you are going to scowl at me,” Dawn said as he pulled the armchair around so they could sit opposite each other instead of side by side.

“You won’t talk to Uncle Jasper.” He dropped the case on the little table between the chairs and flicked open the lid. He removed the folded board and laid it out.

“I think I am entitled to take a few days to let my physical wounds heal somewhat before I consider the state of my heart.” Dawn picked up a pawn from the box and placed it on its square.

The frown stayed in place on the young man’s forehead as he picked up handful of black pawns and set them down on the board. “I don’t know what happened in the maze because no one will tell me, but the Cor-vitis is never wrong. You two are supposed to be together.”

Dawn set out the rest of the white pieces to face an ebony army. She didn’t want to have this conversation with him; he wouldn’t understand. Then she remembered he was twice her age, despite his youthful face, and had displayed a remarkable maturity on other topics.

Her fingers gripped the ivory queen as she whispered, “I saw your uncle Jasper with your mother.”

That removed the frown as his eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. He plucked a pawn of each colour from the board and formed a fist around them. “Uncle Jasper does what he has to, to protect us all.”

Dawn bit back a quick retort. There was protecting your family and then there was succumbing to baser needs. “I don’t think you understand—”

“Oh, I do understand. I have watched for years as Uncle Jasper has kept himself between her and us.” His serious grey eyes were so like his uncle’s that her heart tightened at the reminder.

Dawn sat back in her armchair and turned to stare at the fire. She couldn’t have this conversation with Elijah. His view was clouded by his love for his uncle.

“When you first came here, Ava tried to frighten you away,” he said, rubbing the pawns together in his hand as though they were dice.

“Yes.” Then after a few failed accidents, she had all but vanished after Jasper started sleeping in the chair now occupied by his nephew.

“Then she stopped.”

Dawn sighed and turned back to face him. This discussion was pointless. He held out two fists to her.

“I presume she gave up when she realised she couldn’t reach me.” But her vine had. The scratches all over Dawn’s body itched and heated. Soon infection and the black strands would bloom from them all. Would she crumble like the roses or make a valiant last stand like plain viridiflora?

Dawn tapped Elijah’s left fist and he turned it over to reveal the ivory pawn.

They placed the pieces on the board, where Elijah’s finger lingered on the ebony pawn. “She didn’t give up. She has always been watching to discover your weaknesses. She has seen you with Uncle Jasper in the grounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if she lured you to the maze so she could use Uncle Jasper as a weapon against you.”

Dawn moved her bishop’s pawn forward two squares. She wanted to dismiss Elijah’s theory with a wave of her hand. She had experienced an odd compulsion that night to breach the centre. That aside, she knew what she saw. She knew what Jasper had done.

Or did she?

To think Jasper betrayed her cut her deeper than a falling pane of glass ever could. Knowing it was him in Ava’s arms made Dawn gasp for breath more than being trapped in the pineapple pits. Thinking they desired each other was a poison more toxic than what Ava’s serpent vine released.

“Could we just play the game, please?” Dawn’s eyes moistened to think she was wrong and Ava had used them both. The seed of hope burrowed a little deeper into her flesh.

“Of course,” he murmured. “But promise me you will consider what I said?”

“I promise.”

Elijah left when Dawn started to sacrifice too many pieces and her tired mind couldn’t consider the long game any more. The next day she eschewed all visitors and told Marjory she wanted time alone to think. The nurse frowned. The expression was quite the epidemic on the estate.

Marjory pointed to the raven on the potager wall. “Very well. He’ll keep an eye on you. Wave at him if you need anything.”

As another night fell, Dawn should have curled up with a book. She couldn’t. Two days shut in the cottage were enough, and her feet itched to walk over the estate’s soil. Odd how as a child she spent years often confined to her bed and never imagined escaping those four walls. Now she longed to prowl around the grounds and to feel a gentle night breeze stir her short hair. She also needed the hum of energy from the estate’s magical ground that would carry up through the soles of her feet.

She pulled her robe tight around her waist and crept out with the wolfhound at her heel. She needed to dig her toes into the dirt, and while her body still ached from the numerous scratches and waged an internal war against Ava’s poisonous agent, her need to renew her connection with the land was the greater force.

The watcher on the wall peered at her as she left the cottage. Would he tell Jasper she was outside? A chill washed over her body that had nothing to do with the damp in the air. Dawn walked east to see if her lads had progressed any further with burning the herbaceous borders.

The moon above lit the way and only the occasional cry of an owl, or rustle of leaves, broke the silence. Woman and canine moved silently across the grass. Dawn stopped in the long expanse of rectangular lawn between the herbaceous borders. The beds were six feet wide and ran straight for nearly sixty feet.

The end was marked by an enormous five-foot urn on a two-foot plinth. In the urn, she had planned to plant a tall silvery grass with long, graceful stems. At night when the moon struck it, it would look as though a silver fountain erupted from the vessel. Would she see her vision come to fruition now?

If her services were no longer desired by the earl, then she would note the species and genus she planned to use in the urn for the gardener who came after her. She had spent many nights drawing planting schemes for the long borders and imagining the right combinations of colour that would delight people over spring and autumn. Those plans would now be stored with all the other notes and drawings in the cottage.

How she longed to watch the map in the cottage morph and redraw itself as the estate healed and new combinations emerged. Would another now witness that magic?

She turned Elijah’s words over and over in her mind until they spun like a top. Either she could torment herself for days, or she could confront the issue head-on and seek the truth. Would she know if Jasper had played her false?

An itch started in her palm, and when she looked down, a sad tendril of the pea-like vine draped over her hand as though it were dying. Its core was flat and deflated, and its single leaf curled at the edges.

Did the expired plant mean their connection was severed, or had the plant appeared to remind her that there was a force far larger than her at play?

“If only you could talk and explain everything to me,” she muttered to the plant. Then she curled her hand into a fist and the Cor-vitis vanished when she relaxed her fingers.

Dawn looked up as the night air thrummed with a refrain she had heard before. Her heart thudded in her chest as she turned. The monstrous creature emerged over the tops of the hedges and dropped to the ground with a thump. He stood in front of the plinth like a hideous statue. His extended wings almost reached to each side of the border.

Then with a sigh, he retracted his wings and tucked them to his back. One hand rose as though to reach for her, then the hand turned into a granite fist and dropped to his side.

“Marjory said she had cut all your hair off.” Even his voice was rougher in this form, as though each word was dragged over gravel.

Dawn raised a hand and tugged on a short curl by her ear. “It was tangled beyond saving.”

“The raven said you were here. I had to see you, even though you would not speak to me.” He spoke but remained locked in place. Not a muscle moved as though he were solid stone.

Dawn wanted to look away but found the sight of him fascinating, despite the pain he brought. Was everything about him carved from stone, and how did he turn from man to gargoyle?

“It hurts,” she whispered at length. “To think what you did with her.”

A single breath heaved in his torso and he looked down at his clawed feet.

Was it even a betrayal when there had been no promises between them? He lured her with seductive words about the Cor-vitis choosing a couple who were meant to be together, but she had never given him her answer.

Her quiet conversations with Elijah had helped Dawn work through the tangle in her mind, but there were still strands she didn’t want to tug. Like how the sight of Jasper, even in granite form, made her heart beat faster and her palm itch.

He raised his head and stepped toward her, but Dawn recoiled.

“Elijah said that Ava used you as a weapon against me.” She held up her hands, halting him. Could she place her faith and hope in the quiet words of the young man? And if she did, did that absolve Jasper of his actions?

“Yes. Ava commands and I must obey. I do not go to her willingly.” He spat the words out, pebbles thrown into the night. His massive hands curled into fists the size of teapots and the claws on the tips of his wings extended.

Dawn shook her head, as much to deny his words as to try and stop the itch on her right hand that became an insistent wriggle. She thought the Cor-vitis had died, but it seemed to want her to lay her hands on Jasper and revive it. “You are bound to her.”

He paced along the edge of the border. A statue turned sentry, marching back and forth. “As she is to me. The sanctuary’s heart can compel the Lord Warder to answer her summons, regardless of my personal feelings.”

“I saw you! I saw the things the two of you did and the…the noises you made.” She was determined not to cry. She would not show how deeply she was cut.

“You saw and heard her. Ava has been watching us these last few weeks and has seen the feelings grow between us. She knew exactly what would hurt you most. That is what she has always been good at, ferreting out a person’s weaknesses. For many years now she has forced me to answer her summons and binds my limbs to make me endure what she does.” The pacing ceased and his wings unfurled and sprang from his back. The claws turned inward as though imagining they struck out at an enemy, and his hands turned into fists clenched so tight veins raced along his thick stone arms.

It made a twisted sort of sense that Ava took the person Dawn cared for the most and turned him against her. What bothered Dawn was she couldn’t figure out how it had been possible.

She had heard mutterings of how a man could force himself upon a woman. Once, a young woman along their road had been savaged and faced the unbearable choice of either marrying her abuser to save her reputation, or being disowned by her family. Could a woman force herself upon a man? The very idea seemed impossible.

Ava had used her serpent vines to bind Jasper’s arms, legs, and wings. Would that have been necessary if he were a willing participant in her nocturnal activities? For all she knew, being tied up might be a normal part of relations between Elementals. Or was it done to render Jasper a powerless victim?

How she longed to have her mother here. Verity Uxbridge, truth taster, could whisper his words and savour them on her tongue. Then she could tell her daughter if he spoke sour lies or sweet honesty.

Mouse sat at her side and Dawn twisted her fingers into his fur as she thought. She wanted to trust Jasper, but she had so little to judge him against, and their acquaintance was still so new.

“I can’t believe she did such a thing simply to horrify me.” Had Ava known she was asleep under the tree and then put her plan into effect?

For many years, he had said.

What she saw wasn’t the first time he had gone to Ava and performed such acts with her. “How many years have you been going to her, Jasper, and what does she gain from such an assault?”

“She has used me since Julian died.” His voice was quiet when he spoke. His attention roamed over the dug beds, up the hedges and on to the ink black sky above. He scanned to a multitude of places but never rested on any spot. As though he sought to look anywhere but at her. “As to what she gains, how does a plant propagate itself?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. What a silly question to ask a gardener. “Seed, of course.”

His hands uncurled and his head dropped to his chest. His shoulders slumped and even his wings sagged. Defeat rolled off him in sad waves.

What did seed have to do with whatever Ava forced Jasper to do…? Then realisation slammed into Dawn and she blushed. No wonder he couldn’t face her. She could only imagine the depth of his shame, if his words were true.

His words were softly spoken but carried on the still night. “She takes my seed to spread her poison throughout the estate. The black vines are the hideous deformity she creates from our union. It is my offspring that suffocates this land.”

Dawn blew out a long breath, and a measure of her pain and heartache dissipated with it. Elijah was right, Ava had thrown the exact weapon that would have made Dawn bolt from the estate. Except she could never be angry at Jasper when he was forced against his will.

Each question answered raised a myriad more. “Why do you not refuse her? If you stood your ground and resisted her demands, what could she do?”

Nothing, surely, but pout and shake her leaves. There would be no point sending an invasion of greenfly to the rose garden when the roses had already ceded that battle.

He met her gaze and his jaw ground. “She can force me to go to her, but she cannot compel me to act against my will. However, I am not the only Warder living on this estate that she can command. If I resisted her for too long—” His words choked off and he didn’t complete the sentence.

Dawn gasped and a hand flew to her cover her mouth. Not the only Warder? Elijah. Dawn doubled over as her stomach rebelled at the idea. She gasped air into her lungs to fight back the revulsion that clawed up her gullet. She recalled her conversation with Elijah; Uncle Jasper has always placed himself between her and us. “No. She couldn’t. Not him.”

Jasper took one step toward Dawn. “She would. I refused her summons once, many years ago. Elijah was just a babe, and still she made him crawl through the maze to her until I’d begged her to let him go from her thrall.”

Dawn dropped to the grass and pulled her knees up to her chest. She leaned into the warm side of Mouse. She needed to think. A winter storm and a freezing blizzard of horrid ideas slammed against her mind. How could a mother use her child? What sort of twisted, evil monster would pervert the maternal bond in such a way?

Jasper took another step and then sat on the grass beside her, so she was between gargoyle and wolfhound. Jasper tucked his wings in close so as not to scrape or disturb her or Mouse. “Whatever you feel or don’t feel for me, I need your help. I cannot free us of Ava’s control on my own. If you will not have me as a mate, at least accept me as Lord Warder. We could rebuild Ravenswing – together.”

Dawn had only ever wanted a simple life tending a garden. She never wanted to face such choices where the lives and happiness of others depended on her. All day she had wrestled with what to do. Part of her wanted to run and lick her wounds. Then the cuts all over her body heated. A faint black spider web had already begun to spread.

She blinked back the tears. Life wasn’t fair. Ava had already struck her fatal blow. How long would it take for the vine to eat away at her from the inside? The people and land of Alysblud needed her. At least she could do something to help them before she succumbed to the poison in her body.

“I will try, but it may be a short-lived victory.” She laid a hand over her chest. “Due to a heart condition, the doctors always told my parents I was not long for this world, and I received a similar admonition from Dr Day.”

Then she held out her bare arms to show the dark smudges radiating out from the cuts. “And Ava’s vine already pollutes my veins. I can only hope to give you sufficient time to find a suitable replacement.”

She couldn’t look at him, not now she had acknowledged the helplessness of the situation. She would battle Ava, however that was done, and do all she could to restore balance to the estate. That would give Jasper a little longer to seek another Elemental who would live long enough to see the garden flourish once more.

“Oh, Dawn. Did you think I would stand by and watch you die and then replace you with another?” His words were quiet, like a gurgle of water over rocks but his tone heavy like boulders.

She faced him. That was exactly what she assumed would happen. Was there any point in them growing to love each other? She would die centuries before him and leave Jasper with a hole like that she bore where her parents used to reside. Better to save him that agony.

He reached for her hand and paused, uncertain. Instead he turned his arm and extended his hand, palm upward to her.

Dawn breathed in and decided to be brave. She placed her hand in his monstrous one. She expected his touch to be cold and hard, but she found warmth. Like a brick wall that soaked up the sun’s heat and then gave it back when you leaned upon it. His skin reminded her of an emery board, and she resisted the urge to smooth her broken nails against his rough surface.

“The Meidh have a human lifespan as the balance for being more powerful than the other Elementals. But a Warder shares his life force with his mate, and if you accept me, we will share my lifespan. That is why I have continued to resist Ava. She stole Julian’s years and left him a drained and vulnerable husk, but she will never have mine for they can only be freely given, not taken.”

She moved her hand over his as the Cor-vitis materialised. The tendril stirred, like a sleeper awakened, and then it inflated and revived.

“Not much of a bargain for you, I am afraid,” Dawn said as the plant wriggled back into life and tentatively crept over Jasper’s stone palm.

“Have you considered that the issue with your heart is not a human problem but an Elemental one?” He raised her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckles, avoiding the exploratory vine.

“Are other Elementals born with weak hearts?” Did they have doctors who perhaps wore togas and gold laurels on their heads while dispensing celestial cures?

“I don’t think you ever had a weak heart. You were just a plant given the wrong conditions, which is why you struggled to survive. You were a sunflower trying to grow in the shade. Here you have the ideal conditions to allow you to thrive.” The Cor-vitis circled his wrist like ivy tackling a brick wall.

His analogy made sense. A plant could be sickly and near death in one position but once moved to another, could burst into life and flourish. She had improved in Whetstone because it was the equivalent of moving the sunflower to mottled light, allowing it a chance to grow. Here, she stood in the full sun and could reach her potential.

“Length of time doesn’t matter, Dawn. Whether we have one day or a century, I would spend it with you. I hope sharing my life force with you will allow us the time to find a way to remove Ava’s vine from your body. If there is a cure, I promise you that Dr Day and I will find it.”

Peace spread through Dawn’s soul. The contentment that came with hearing a truth that was echoed inside of you. “I believe it infects Lettie also. She told me that she scratched her head on it not long after Julian died. No men who have been injured on the thorns have been infected, and I suspect it only affects women or Elementals.”

Jasper’s eyes widened. “If only we had known. So many years wasted when we could have been finding a way to release her from it, and I would already have an antidote to give you.”

“How could you have known? There is no visible sign, and it was only my reaction to the scratch that made me question if Lettie had a similar encounter.”

He brushed a stone thumb along the back of her hand. “If there is anything you desire, I would do everything in my power to fulfil your wish.”

Her parents stood in her mind’s eye, but she doubted his powers included resurrection. There was something else she desired, a yearning she felt every time the raven took flight from her garden in Whetstone and spread his wings. Since she was being brave and trusted him to hold her hand, she voiced her request. “I want to fly.”

He frowned and lines were chiselled furrows in his brow. “Fly?”

“Yes. Can you fly if you are holding me? Birds circle high above and can see gardens laid out below them in a way I can only imagine.” Admittedly it was a silly wish, but perhaps the antidote to a very serious conversation. He had sturdy-looking wings that held him aloft. Surely the addition of her weight was not too much to ask?

He stood and pulled her to him. With both hands flat on his chest, she marvelled at the warmth of the granite. She thought he would be rough and abrasive like hewn brick, but her hands glided over him as though the thinnest layer of silk covered the stone.

He swung her into his arms and Dawn wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Ready?” he asked. No matter the hideous outer layer, the grey gaze simmered with the Jasper she knew.

“I’ll be back, Mouse,” she said to the wolfhound. Then she managed a small smile before her courage abandoned her. “I’m ready.”

Dawn didn’t know if he jumped or if the ground simply fell away, but they shot upward.

She gasped and turned her head, but made sure her hands were locked around Jasper’s thick neck. Laid out below her and caressed in moonlight was the entire estate. Now she could see the spread of the blight. She had thought the hermitage might be the point of origin for Ava’s python vine that she created with the seed stolen from Jasper. But below she saw how it spiralled out from the maze.

Only one spot remained free and untouched.

The lake was a mirror, the sole bright spot that could not be extinguished.