Dawn broke on a Thornwood transformed. Overnight, the gardens had become a fortress. Thick, barbed vines coiled over all the gates and doorways. The once-beautiful roses now grew in impenetrable, snarled thickets, their scent turned cloying and sickly sweet. The sky above the estate was a bruised, perpetual twilight.
Cassian was waiting for her in the grand foyer. He looked like a king of ruins. His face was a mask of cold fury, but his eyes… his eyes were shattered.
"You called the weed," he said, his voice hollow.
"I want out, Cassian."
"There is no out!" The explosion made the chandelier tremble. "There is only Thornwood! There is only me! I have given you everything I am!"
"You've taken everything I am!"
They stood facing each other, the bond a live wire of agony and love and hate strung taut between them. The front door shuddered under a sudden, violent impact from the outside—the vines tightening.
"He is here," Cassian sneered. "Your mortal savior. Let's see him try to prune this garden." He turned towards the door, a wave of malicious power radiating from him. Lilith saw the vision from her dream flash before her eyes: Leo, strangled by roots.
"NO!" She didn't think. She threw herself at Cassian, not to attack, but to stop him, her hands gripping the front of his shirt. The contact was electric, a surge of their combined power and pain. "If you hurt him, you kill the last part of me that's human! The part that cares, that feels guilt! Is that what you want? A forever with a hollow shell?"
He froze, staring down at her, her words hitting their mark. The rage bled away, leaving only a devastating emptiness. Outside, they could hear Leo's distant, frightened calls.
"What do you want from me, Lilith?" The question was a whisper of utter defeat.
"A choice. A real one. You say the bond will kill me if I break it. What if you break it?"
He recoiled as if struck. "It would unravel me. Centuries of existence, gone. Thornwood would die. It is my life."
"And mine is mine!" she cried, tears finally breaking free. "You love me? Then prove it. Love isn't possession. It's sacrifice. You asked for a piece of my future. I'm asking for all of yours."
The silence that followed was absolute. The very house seemed to hold its breath. Cassian looked at her—at the tears on her cheeks, at the fierce, doomed light in her eyes. He saw the ghost of the mortal man he had been, who would have died for such a love. He had lived as a monster for centuries. He could die as a man, for her.
A profound calm settled over his features. The cold, ancient authority melted away, leaving only a deep, weary tenderness. He cupped her face, his thumb wiping a tear away.
"All my future," he repeated softly. "For a chance at yours." He leaned down and kissed her, a kiss of goodbye, of forgiveness, of infinite regret. It tasted of salt and finality.
He released her and walked to the center of the foyer. He didn't look at the door, or the vines. He looked only at her. "Remember the memory you gave me," he said. "The sunlight. It was enough."
He raised his hands. Instead of drawing power in, he began to push it out. A golden light, the same color as the dandelion seeds from her second offering, erupted from his chest. He was pulling at the roots of the curse, at the very magic that bound him. The vines on the doors writhed and began to wither. Outside, the oppressive twilight cracked, revealing a sliver of true blue sky.
But Cassian was paying the price. He gasped, his body convulsing. Cracks of golden light spread across his skin, as if he were a porcelain statue breaking apart from the inside. He was unraveling, as he said he would.
"Stop!" Lilith screamed, realizing the true cost. She didn't want this. She loved him. Monster and man.
"It's done," he gritted out, a smile of terrible peace on his lips. The light consumed him. For a moment, he was a brilliant, golden silhouette. Then, with a sound like a sigh, the light imploded.
He was gone.
The vines turned to dust. The roses shed their petals in a sudden, crimson rain. The door swung open, revealing a stunned Leo and a normal, summer's day.
Cassian was gone. And the profound, silent pulse of Thornwood in her soul was gone with him. All that remained was an empty manor, a dying garden, and a silence more profound than any she had ever known. She had gotten her future back. And it stretched before her, empty and meaningless, a barren field where a dark, beautiful, and terrible love had once grown.