Page 19

CLARA

T he sun’s not up yet when I walk back to the Grove.

I don’t wait for light anymore.

It’s not that I’m braver now, just… resolved. There’s a difference. Fear still hums in my chest like a second heartbeat, but it’s wrapped in something stronger.

Determination.

The Grove is so quiet, it feels like holding your breath underwater.

But I keep walking.

All the way to the sacred tree.

The bark doesn’t pulse. The roots don’t reach.

Still, I kneel.

And I dig.

It’s not a big hole—just enough. I use my trowel at first, but soon I’m clawing with my bare hands, dirt caked under my fingernails. My palms sting, but I don’t stop.

When it’s deep enough, I pull my father’s seed journal from my satchel.

It’s old and soft at the edges now, corners frayed from years of being held too tightly. The pages still smell like him— peppermint and loam and faded ink. I press it to my chest one last time and whisper, “He believed in things no one else did.”

My throat tightens.

“And now I do too.”

I set the journal in the earth, spine facing up like a spine of some long-dead forest creature—and I bury it.

Slowly.

Carefully.

One handful of dirt at a time.

I don’t rush. I don’t cry.

Not this time.

This isn’t grief.

It’s a vow .

When I’m done, I sit back on my heels, brushing the dirt from my lap, and reach into my pocket. I pull out a single leaf.

Not just any leaf.

A cutting I’d taken from a vine Thorn once taught me to coax from stone—sharp-edged, green as envy, and old enough to remember the first spell ever whispered here.

I press the stem into the soil above the journal.

A leaf and a promise.

“That’s yours now,” I whisper. “Ours.”

The wind doesn’t stir.

But for the first time in days, I swear the Grove is listening again.

I sit in the quiet not expecting or hoping for anything.

But then the moss stirs beneath my knees.

The soil hums, soft at first—like a tuning fork beneath the skin. The roots below shift, gently, like stretching after a long sleep. I flinch, hands bracing on the ground.

Then the leaf I planted begins to glow.

A soft, warm green at first, like bioluminescence.

Then brighter.

It pulses once.

Twice.

And the light spreads—ribbons of magic uncoiling from the soil, weaving through the roots like silver veins. Flowers burst open where no flowers should grow. Vines coil up the sacred tree in thick braids, blooming wildly in shades I don’t have names for.

The air smells like my father’s greenhouse—damp, sweet, full of memory and possibility.

And the tree?

It glows .

Faint, golden light bleeding from the bark lines, the runes flickering awake like ancient eyes blinking open.

I can’t breathe.

I press both palms into the dirt, staring, my heart tripping over itself.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean—” I stammer.

The Grove doesn’t answer in words.

It answers in beauty.

Raw. Wild. Uncontained.

This isn’t the tidy, measured magic in textbooks.

This is grief turned sacred.

Love made luminous.

The Grove is alive .

And it remembers us both.

Above me, birds burst into the sky like fireworks—wings bright with reflected light. Their cries echo through the clearing, not startled, but rejoicing.

The air stirs with more than wind.

Tiny insects shimmer through sunbeams, golden like dust motes from another world. A swirl of petals lifts from the ground, dancing between the vines as if stirred by invisible fingers.

Pixies.

Not many.

Just a few, blinking into existence like they’ve been waiting for permission to return. They flit between blossoms, trailing laughter like chimes, their wings iridescent and gossamer-thin.

I watch it all in stunned silence.

This isn’t a sanctuary anymore.

It’s sacred .

The Grove has spoken.

And I believe it more than I ever have.

I hear footsteps crunching the underbrush before I see him.

Eliorin Vask, Magical Environmental Board lapdog, strolling through the Grove like it’s a municipal park. His charm glasses gleam, and his survey wand hums low at his side.

I step forward, blocking his path.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, breathless. “It’s—look.”

He pauses.

And for a second, I see it hit him.

The golden glow through the trees. The flower petals spinning in lazy spirals through the air. The humming pixies weaving between branches. The earth, literally alive beneath his feet.

His gaze flickers. He stares up at the sacred tree, still pulsing with light like it’s breathing again.

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. “It’s real. You feel it, don’t you?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

For one fragile moment, his mouth parts like he might say yes .

Like he might admit that the world is stranger and softer and better than he thought.

But then he blinks.

And just like that, it’s gone.

He straightens his coat.

“It’s… a trick of residual aura,” he says, flatly. “Likely a delayed environmental response to spell saturation. Nothing permanent.”

My heart drops.

“You felt it.”

“I felt a fluctuation. Nothing more.”

He brushes past me, pulling out his clipboard.

I stand there, fists clenched at my sides, as he writes down numbers that don’t mean anything and ignores the miracle happening around him.

Because magic, to people like him, only counts if it fits inside a box.

And this?

This is too wild to tame.