Dawn awoke the next morning refreshed, overheated, and somewhat squashed. Jasper clutched her tight to his chest and had partially rolled on top of her. She wondered if this was what every morning would be like from now on. Probably not, as Jasper no doubt had some enormous suite in the manor house. Did he have an equally large bed? Or perhaps he stood out in the garden like a statue at night. She should really ask.

As she squirmed in his tight grip, he rolled to his back and dragged her over with him.

“Does your skin cover your stone construction? You are as heavy as a brick wall,” she muttered as she draped herself on top of him. He seemed to maintain a constant temperature like a sun-heated wall. That would have benefits in winter, particularly if she could warm her cold toes against him.

“I didn’t want to let you go in case it was a dream and you were gone in the morning,” he murmured. Then he slid out from under her and reversed their positions, pressing her beneath him as she lay on her stomach. He trailed a line of kisses up the back of her spine that made her shiver. Then his tongue swooped over her skin and she imagined he followed a pattern laid by the Cor-vitis.

She clutched the pillow and stared at the marks on her arms. Once again the black spidery ones crept forth. “The lines are fading and Ava’s vine returns.”

“I know how to make the Cor-vitis mark come back.” His tongue licked lower to the small of her back and over the curve of her bottom. His teethed nipped her skin on the way down.

“Oh,” was all Dawn managed to gasp before she was fisting the pillow, unable to remember what she had been about to say.

Some time later, as Dawn’s outstretched hand flopped over the side of the bed, a wet nose pressed to her skin. She opened one eye and peered out to find Mouse sitting patiently by the bed. The wolfhound had nudged the bedroom door open and let the couple know he was still in the cottage.

“Mouse wants out,” Dawn said as she sat up.

Jasper laid a hand on her shoulder. “Before you go, you should know that unlike my brother, I have every intention of marrying my heart. I don’t want to overwhelm you. I know events have given you much to come to terms with, and I will not add to that until you have had time to grow used to life with me. But do expect a proposal in the near future, Miss Uxbridge.”

“Thank you.” She leaned over and kissed him. Then she picked up her discarded nightdress from the floor and pulled it back over her head as she walked to the front door.

Mouse took off with some speed, and Dawn suspected he had waited as long as he could before he let his needs be known. When she returned to the bedroom, Jasper had dressed.

“We have much to discuss, and we probably both need a decent breakfast. Will you join us in the manor house?” He reached out and pulled her to his chest.

She breathed him in and took a moment of peace and quiet before they faced the rest of the wider family. “Yes. I am famished for some reason. I just need a chance to wash and dress so I am presentable.”

“I find you entirely presentable with nothing on at all.” He kissed her throat and then let her go.

Dawn touched her fingers to her neck to press his kiss into her skin. She didn’t think she could ever get enough of his touch. And at long last she had found a way to remove the frown from his face.

Cor-vitis – drunk on love. She had an inkling of what that meant now as it fizzed in her veins and made her feel more alive than ever before.

After breakfast, the entire extended family gathered in the library, including Dr Day, who had been summoned.

“You didn’t think I would be left out did you?” The doctor winked at Dawn, and then he scanned the room before fixating on Lettie.

She followed to where his attention lay, sitting beside Elijah. “Lettie seems much calmer this morning. I hope it is the first sign of real progress for her. My scratches have also settled down today.”

The doctor’s attention slid back to Dawn. “That is good news. Perhaps there is something in your theory of a vine scratch affecting Lady Letitia also, although from what I researched over the last few days, there is no way to remove it from her head without inflicting more damage.”

Jasper cleared his throat and waited for the murmur in the room to fall. He placed one hand on the marble mantel. “We are all here to discuss Ava and how to end her reign. Dawn is willing to be the new heart of Ravenswing, if we can supplant Ava.”

Dawn moved to his side and reached for his hand. “I know I have much to learn about your world, but I think I have pieced together something that may work, if you are all willing to help.”

Glances were exchanged between Marjory, Hector, and Elijah. Lettie stared at her hands in her lap. Elijah spoke for them all. “We will do whatever we can.”

Dawn mouthed a thank you to the young man. “I think water is Ava’s weakness, and we shall use that to our advantage. I want to construct a moat around the Ravensblood tree. It may offer protection to the tree and further weaken Ava. But I need your help, Lettie.”

It seemed everyone held their breath and stared at the ethereal woman. She shook her head. “She scares me.”

Dawn walked over to where Lettie sat and knelt down to hold her hands. “I know, but you do not do this alone. We will defeat her as a family.”

She closed her eyes and blew out a long sigh. Then she opened them again, and a tiny hint of resolve stared back at Dawn. “Family. Yes. Julian would have liked that.”

They discussed how to create the moat and divided up tasks. As the others left, Elijah paused in front of his uncle.

“After we have removed Ava, we will avenge my father.” The young man tilted his chin and challenged his lord.

Jasper ground his jaw but didn’t answer.

Elijah threw up his hands, his frustration palpable. “How long will you make me wait? It has already been forty years while the Hamiltons laugh and name us cowards.”

Jasper stared at the youth for a long moment and then stretched out his hand. “Never think I have forgotten my brother, but Ava has bound me all this time. Once Dawn is the new heart, I promise you that Julian will be avenged.”

Elijah took his uncle’s hand, and the two men shook on their promise.

A shiver ran over Dawn’s skin. Would she lose Jasper and Elijah to the Hamiltons, just as they lost Julian? Soarers had claimed so many loved ones from this family, and they may also have been behind the deaths of her parents.

Jasper watched Elijah leave and then wrapped an arm around Dawn’s waist. He kissed the top of her head. “You can stop worrying right now. No harm will come to either of us.”

“How can you be so sure?” Lettie said he couldn’t save them. Or, perhaps she meant not while the estate was controlled by Ava. What if by healing both tree and land, Dawn made the family stronger? They might be strong enough to withstand any blow dealt by their enemies.

She managed to conjure a smile to her lips. “Might I suggest we tackle one enemy at a time?”

While Dawn had been recuperating in the cottage, her workforce had continued clearing and trimming the maze. The passageways were now easier to navigate, and nothing caught in Dawn’s newly shorn locks.

“Where does she go during the day?” Dawn asked as they walked the freshly clipped tunnels. She refrained from using Ava’s name in case the newly cut vine sprang into life and blocked the way.

Jasper shrugged. “Because of the bond, I can keep her confined to the estate’s boundary, but that covers hundreds of acres and includes the mountains and heavily forested areas. She could be hiding anywhere. I only see her when she summons me.” He tugged on her hand and pulled her closer to his side. “My mind feels clearer already, as though we have opened a window in a room too long shut up, but my connection to her as Lord Warder remains.”

Dawn leaned in to him as they walked and cast a glance backward at the family and workmen following them. Chatter rose from the other group. “I hope you can resist her call if she summons you. Lettie seems calmer this morning, but if the serpent vine is growing inside her, I don’t know how we will remove it.”

“Grayson has been researching that. He said it might be similar to insects that burrow into the ear canal and lay eggs, and there may be a way to entice it out of its own accord.” Jasper let go of her hand to slide an arm around her waist.

Dawn grimaced. Bugs inside your head sounded more horrifying than a vine or an apple growing in your stomach. “We won’t know until we defeat you-know-who and see what effect that will have on this monstrous vine.”

Jasper glanced up at a thick branch that jutted down toward them and guided her under it. “Everything and everyone feels the heart’s presence to some degree. Elijah saw me returning to the house this morning. I told him I had been out for an early morning walk, but I suspect he knows there was more to it than that.”

Judging by the smirks, smiles, and nudges being exchanged, Dawn surmised that everyone knew exactly what happened the previous night.

They stepped through the last archway and entered the tree’s presence. Dawn stopped and stared. The state of decline was more heartbreaking in the morning light. The ground was littered with dead leaves, the corners of their black bodies curled up upon themselves. Varying shades of red on the reverse of the leaves made the ground appear to be coated in still glowing embers that had rained down from the burning tree.

Deep in her soul, Dawn renewed her promise to save the tree and the family. “Right everybody, we have lots to accomplish today. Let’s start work.”

The men wheeled in barrows laden with spades and pick axes.

“You are in charge, what would you have us do?” Jasper murmured from her side.

Dawn held out her arms. “We are going to construct a moat around the tree, as deep and wide as we can achieve in one day. Tonight, Lettie will summon water to fill it.”

Hector presented Dawn with the pail of paint and a brush. She drew a circle within the central square. The Ravensblood stood at top of the circle with a stretch of lawn under its canopy.

Jasper and Elijah changed to their Elemental forms. Dawn watched as pebbles and stones appeared from the thin air and adhered to their bodies and encased their clothing. They grew taller and more muscular as the rock coated them. At first they appeared rough clay thrown together and then the rock smoothed out to form sharp features, wings, and claws. The entire process took only a few seconds and soon two gargoyles stood on the lawn – one a slightly shorter version of the other.

As earth Elementals, Jasper and Elijah led the way, working around the circle Dawn had marked in the grass. They opened up the soil using their bare stone hands like ploughs, the ground obeying their command to form a trench. The army of men followed behind to pick up the leftover rubble, shovelling loose earth and stones into the wheelbarrows.

As Dawn watched, she imagined the two earth Elementals holding picks and perhaps with little red pointy hats. They would make fabulous garden ornaments on a manicured lawn. Or perhaps hiding among shrubbery for inquisitive children to stumble upon.

“You can think it, but don’t go calling them gnomes aloud.” Hector winked at her as he picked up a shovel.

Dawn bit back a laugh. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Seen advertisements in the newspaper. Those garden ornaments are all the fashion apparently, and here we are with two giant versions only in need of the hats.” He shook his head in mock disbelief and joined the others.

They had a serious task, but it gladdened Dawn to see how they all pulled together. She took the opportunity of bright light to inspect the tree. When she laid her hand on the trunk, heat spread from around the tiny splinter in her palm to the tree.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the living being under her hand. Thoughts swirled like the scattered leaves, and her mind was clogged up like a drain. Disparate pieces of information filtered through the piles. Ava’s petty vindictiveness against Lettie and fear of the lake. Then the transference from one heart to another through touching the tree. The itch in her hand from the sliver of trunk grew hotter as though she had picked up the kettle from the range without using a cloth as insulation.

In her mind she formulated the one question she most needed help with. How did a nurturing soul defeat one consumed by avarice? The same answer kept replaying in Dawn’s mind, no matter how she worded the question.

Sacrifice.

Dawn severed the connection with the tree and rubbed her palm. The sliver seemed to have burrowed back into her flesh, and it would take a needle and a bit of digging to remove it. Combined with the pieces from Ava’s vine that had pierced her skin, Dawn felt more wood than flesh. As she picked up a rake to clear fallen leaves, she mulled over the glimpses shown her by the Ravensblood.

The men laboured all day while Nurse Hatton ensured they were kept fed and watered. A steady stream of men wheeled barrows of dirt back through the maze to dump by the entrance. By dusk, they had dug a trench four feet deep and five feet wide around the outer edge of the garden room. The Ravensblood now stood on an island, and all it needed was the surrounding water.

Jasper shook himself free of his stone cladding and returned to his human form. Then he dismissed the men, thanking for them their hard work and giving them the rest of the week off on full pay. He turned to Dawn. “Now what would you have us do?”

Dawn surveyed the family. Elijah was still in his gargoyle form protecting his aunt. “I think it would be better if Hatton, Hector, and Dr Day were safely away from here. I doubt we will be able to convince Elijah to leave, as much as I would prefer he wasn’t here.”

Jasper gave a soft laugh. “The lad does seem somewhat stubborn.”

Amid much grumbling, they convinced the others to wait outside the maze. The doctor looked particularly rebellious as he picked up his black bag and stared at Lettie with worry pulling at his brows and moustache.

“Jasper will let you know the instant it is over, we promise,” Dawn reassured them as they walked under the arch toward the towering hedges. Then she laid a hand on Jasper’s arm as dusk merged with full dark. “You said she summons you, but is the reverse possible? Can you call her?”

He drew a breath as though something pained him. “Yes.”

“Let’s light the lanterns first.” They had hung lights from the Ravensblood’s boughs and now they lit the wicks, giving the maze’s private central area a romantic and festive feel at odds with what they were about to do.

Jasper drew a deep breath and shifted form. Granite appeared from the thin air and encased him. Then he knelt, one fist to the ground and his head tucked to his chest. His wings arched over his crouched body.

He whispered something under his breath, over and over. They were ancient words that Dawn couldn’t discern and yet they tugged at her. Her body wanted to go to him, but she held herself apart. His summons was for another.

A wind rustled leaves and made a low moan as it whipped around them. The ravens roosting in the trees squawked and rose as one, creating a black cloud that blotted out the emerging stars in the night sky. The yew hedge undulated like an ocean heaving in a squall. One part of the hedge shook, and then a shape detached from the dense greenery and stepped onto the lawn.

Ava.

The embodiment of the garden’s rotten heart trod over the unkempt grass. Leaves fluttered from her foliage and drifted to the ground. A waft of decomposing debris swirled around her. Her bark shifted as she moved like airy fabric that hugged her form. Dawn tried but failed to see the arresting young woman who had captivated Julian over forty years ago.

The creature was fixated on Jasper as it stepped down into the trench and crossed to the other side. She climbed out, stopped before him, and spread her arms that turned into branches with twig fingers. She was tall in this form, only a little short of the gargoyle’s seven feet. When she spread her branches, she created darkness around her. Behind her, thick black vines trailed from the hedge to her skirts, an umbilical cord anchoring her to the maze.

Dawn stood next to Jasper and reached for his hand as he rose.

“You dare bring her before me?” Ava’s voice rasped like bark rubbing against a branch, and her leaves rustled.

Dawn stared at knot holes that gleamed black and served as Ava’s eyes. “Your reign is over, Ava. I have come to release you.”

She laughed and her hair foliage shook. “This is my domain. He is my Warder. You are a bug that I will squash, or shall I have our children destroy you from the inside?” Her branch hand formed into a fist that she twisted in the air.

Dawn doubled over as pain tore through her body. Fire snakes writhed under her skin and light danced before her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her torso and cried out, trying to contain the vine shredding her from the inside.

“Dawn!” The gargoyle reached for her hand.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed, grateful he was stone and she wouldn’t hurt him as she funnelled all the pain into bearing down and gaining control of her body.

“Now, Lettie,” Dawn yelled between gritted teeth.

Lettie jumped into the trench and raised her hands. A shimmer flashed around the clearing as she revealed her undine form. Her body became a cascade of blue, silver, and grey as she poured herself into the moat. She called more water from beneath the ground, and the two sources met in a crash. As Lettie commanded the water to pour forth, her hair splayed and flowed around her as though it drifted on an unseen current. Waves hit one another as water completely filled the trench, and the tree was isolated on its island.

“No!” Ava hopped closer to the tree, away from the lap of the water. Her hand dropped and released Dawn from the agony churning inside her.

Dawn drew deep gasps of air as the pain subsided.

The thick black tentacles that ran between Ava and the hedges were now underwater in the trench.

The tree creature’s knot holes narrowed on Dawn and she flung out an accusing arm. “You cannot take it from me. It is all mine!” She lunged for Dawn, but Jasper wrapped a stone hand around a trailing branch, halting her forward movement.

Ava hissed and twisted in his grip. She lashed out with her other hand, raking sharp twig nails over Jasper’s shoulder and chest.

On the other side of the moat, Elijah appeared with a bucket. He walked along Ava’s umbilical roots, tipping the bucket as he went and dribbling kerosene along the length of exposed vines. Then he dropped the bucket and picked up a square object that glinted silver in the lamp light. He knelt and struck the flint, the spark leapt from container to kerosene, and in an instant, blue flame flashed along the coated length.

Ava whirled and screeched at her son as fire licked at her roots. “Fools!”

Then she turned back to Jasper and her form twisted to a more curvaceous outline. The hand that had scratched Jasper now stroked his chest. Her voice dropped low and raspy as she sought to entice rather than fight. “Come to me Jasper, join me as we always do under the tree.”

Ava rose up before them. Her trunk grew and lifted her higher, until she towered over Jasper and he was forced to let go of the branch he had held onto. She opened her arms and beckoned with twig fingers.

Jasper folded his arms over his chest as his wings spread behind him. “No. I am bound to Dawn by the Cor-vitis, and your reign is over. You have two options: You can either relinquish your hold on our sanctuary peaceably, or we will forcibly remove you.”

Her form curled and twisted into a deformed trunk. “It’s mine! All of it is mine and no one will take it from me. I took his years, and I will have yours too.”

The tree wraith spat chips of bark. Dawn ducked under a stone wing and sheltered by Jasper’s side. “Why, Ava? Why did you send Julian to his death?”

Ava screeched and ripples ran along the roots on the other side of the moat. Flaming segments of vine waved and illuminated more of the area like mobile lamps. “I need more. You don’t know what it’s like. The hunger. It claws at me and rips me apart if it’s not fed. Julian’s essence nourished me for years, and when I feed on the rest of you, immortality is in my grasp. But now you have come along and ruined everything.”

“You would use Jasper as well?” Dawn asked.

Ava laughed. “He is simply my larder. I will raid him when the need arises.”

“Did you care nothing for Julian?” Jasper’s wings flapped and the claws on the tips extended as he reached for another piece of Ava to grab.

“Once I had consumed his essence, he was an empty container and useless to me. He was weak and had to go. I needed the next strong Warder to replace him.”

“And what of Elijah?” Jasper’s voice was quiet. “What does he mean to you?”

“One more to keep the hunger at bay,” she said, without even glancing at the child she bore and abandoned.

Dawn’s stomach roiled as she tried to digest the woman’s revolting admission. She had drained a man and then disposed of him. How many times had she done it, and was Julian her first? She was the embodiment of avarice. She could drain every Warder in England and still look around for another.

“I will destroy you all!” Ava screeched and twisted her hands.

Dawn screamed as hot barbs tore through her body and she dropped to her knees. She was dimly aware of Lettie’s cries as the undine shimmered and broke apart, her hands pounding on her skull. Ava’s minions tortured them from inside.

“Water,” Dawn managed to rasp to Jasper as the black tendrils writhed under her skin and tore her flesh. She hugged herself, trying to keep the monstrous plant contained inside her and to stop her body breaking apart. Black spots danced before her eyes as the pain threatened to overwhelm.

Jasper charged at Ava in a rugby tackle. He ploughed into the tree wraith, grabbed her around the middle, and threw himself into the moat. Ava’s screech mingled with Lettie’s screams as Meidh and gargoyle disappeared beneath the surface.

The water dimmed Ava’s power and cut her connection to the vines. Dawn rose on shaking legs as relief washed through her. Now she knew what she had to do.