The growl of the bulldozer was a promise of death.

Rowan Finch stood with her arms locked, her body forming a flimsy, human barricade in front of the garden’s wrought-iron gate.

The sun, a hazy gold coin, was just clearing the Brooklyn rooftops, but the air already felt charged, thick with the scent of diesel fumes and crushed petunias.

Behind her lay her life’s work: a riot of sunflowers, kale, and wildflowers—a defiant shout of life in a world of concrete. Before her stood the end of it all.

“This is private property!” Rowan yelled, her voice trembling but fierce. “You have no right!”

A woman in a flawlessly tailored navy suit stepped forward, a tablet held in her hand like a stone commandment.

Her smile was a blood-red slash of lipstick that didn’t reach her cold, calculating eyes. “Ms. Finch, I am Morwen, Executive VP of Vex Development. This property was legally acquired as of 6 a.m. this morning. We have every right. Please step aside.”

“The community board never approved this sale!” Rowan countered, her heart hammering against her ribs.

“A technicality. Now, you can move, or my security can move you. The choice is yours.”

Morwen gestured dismissively, and two burly men in black polos stepped forward.

It was then that Rowan noticed him.

Standing slightly behind Morwen, half-shrouded in the morning shadow, was a man who did not belong.

He was tall and lean, with a face of sharp, aristocratic angles and hair the color of spun silver.

He wore a simple grey Henley that did nothing to hide the coiled tension in his frame.

But it was his eyes—the grey of a coming storm—that held her captive.

They weren’t cold and corporate like Morwen’s; they were ancient, burdened, and filled with a regret so profound it felt like a physical blow.

He looked at her garden not with a developer’s greed, but with the desperate longing of a man dying of thirst.

The security guards grabbed her arms.

Rowan struggled, digging her heels into the dirt. “You can’t do this! This is a home! It’s the heart of this neighborhood!”

The silver-haired man—Kael—winced, a flicker of pain crossing his features.

This was the cost.

He could feel the raw, wild magic of the Heartseed thrumming just beyond the fence, a siren song of salvation for his dying realm.

And this fierce, stubborn human was its guardian. Morwen, his Unseelie rival, had forced his hand, accelerating the timeline.

Now, he had to stand by and watch her be crushed to secure his prize. It was a necessary sacrifice. He repeated the words in his mind, but they tasted like ash.

“I won’t let you!” Rowan screamed, planting her feet.

“Kael, handle this,” Morwen purred, her patience gone. “Gently.”

Kael stepped forward, his movements fluid and predatory.

He looked directly into Rowan’s eyes, a silent apology warring with his cold resolve. “Please,” he said, his voice a low, resonant baritone that vibrated through her. “Don’t fight them.”

He reached out and closed his hand gently over her forearm to pull her away.

The second his skin touched hers, the world ignited.

A violent, silent explosion of emerald light erupted from the ground beneath them. The air cracked with the scent of ozone and blooming night phlox.

Thorny, iridescent vines, thick as a man’s arm, burst from the soil, shattering the pavement.

They coiled around the bulldozer’s treads, crushing the steel like paper.

They wrapped around the security guards’ ankles, flinging them back with contemptuous ease.

The wrought-iron fence glowed with a furious green energy, warping and twisting into a barrier of living thorns.

Rowan gasped, stumbling back, a strange, exhilarating power coursing through her veins.

She felt the garden respond to her panic, her rage, her will—an ancient, untamed part of her she never knew existed, roaring to life.

The knowing her grandmother had spoken of was no longer a whisper; it was a symphony.

Morwen stared, her corporate mask shattered, replaced by a look of pure, venomous fury.

The glamour flickered in her eyes, revealing the cold, dark magic of the Unseelie Court.

The game was up.

This was no longer a real estate transaction.

Kael stood frozen, his face a mask of utter shock. He wasn’t just looking at a human botanist anymore.

The raw, Seelie power pouring from her, mingling with the garden’s Heartseed, was a force he hadn’t felt in centuries.

The Seers had told him of the prize.

They had never told him the guardian was the prize.

He saw Morwen’s hand begin to twist, black thorns of shadow coiling around her fingers.

His mission had just gone from a simple, soul-crushing theft to an impossible rescue.

He could no longer take the Heartseed from her; she was the Heartseed.

And Morwen would kill her to possess it.

Duty, love, and a desperate, unforeseen hope warred within him. He made a choice.

“Rowan!” he yelled, his voice cutting through the hum of raw magic. He lunged forward, placing himself between her and Morwen’s gathering spell.

The air crackled around them.

“My name is Kaelen of the Silverwood Court,” he said, his storm-grey eyes locked on hers, blazing with a new, urgent purpose.

“Everything you know is a lie. That woman is here to kill you and drain the life from this world, and I was sent to steal this garden’s heart. But you… you changed everything.”

He extended a hand, his palm glowing with a soft, silver light.

“I can’t let her have you. And I won’t let them destroy this place, but there’s so much you don’t know…”

Two Weeks Earlier

Miles and worlds away, the air in a Brooklyn alleyway ripped open.

It wasn’t a sound so much as a feeling—a sudden, violent pressure change, the taste of ozone and distant rain on the tongue.

The tear in reality shimmered like heat haze over asphalt, a wound in the fabric of the world. From it stepped a man who did not belong.

He was tall and lean, with a face of sharp, aristocratic angles that seemed carved from alabaster.

His hair was the colour of spun silver, catching the dim alley light in a way that was unnatural.

He wore clothes that tried desperately to be mundane—dark jeans, a fitted grey Henley, scuffed leather boots—but the glamour woven into them flickered like a dying lightbulb.

For a split second, the Henley was a silver-embroidered tunic of iridescent silk, the boots were soft doeskin, and a circlet of woven moonlight rested on his brow.

Then, the illusion settled, and he was just another handsome, brooding man in a filthy alley.

Kaelen of the Silverwood Court staggered, one hand bracing against the grimy brick wall.

The transit had drained him.

His world was fading, its magic growing thin and brittle like old parchment, and each tear between realms cost more than the last.

He took a deep breath, and the stench of rotting garbage, urine, and despair filled his lungs.

This mortal realm was a cacophony of decay, a constant, grinding assault on his Fae senses. The air was thick with pollutants, the noise of sirens and roaring engines a physical pain.

He was here for one reason. A final, desperate gambit to save his home.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the oppressive grime of the alley, and reached out with his senses.

He pushed past the static of human misery, the frantic buzz of their technology, the reek of their consumption.

He was searching for a different frequency, a different kind of power. He was hunting for a song.

For weeks, the Seers of his court had scried for it, a faint and distant pulse of life magic so potent it was an anomaly.

A wellspring of pure, untamed Seelie energy blooming in a world that should have been barren of such things.

A Heartseed.

An echo of the Old Magic, the very thing his dying world desperately needed.

At first, there was nothing.

Only the city’s harsh, discordant symphony. Despair, a cold and familiar companion, began to coil in his gut.

Had they been wrong? Had he torn the last dregs of his court’s power to chase a ghost?

And then he felt it.

It was faint, almost lost beneath the urban roar, but it was undeniably there.

A slow, deep, resonant thrum. It wasn’t the manicured and mannered magic of a Seelie court; this was wilder, greener, more ferocious.

It was the song of roots shattering stone, of ivy reclaiming brick, of a thousand blossoms opening defiantly to a polluted sky.

It was a symphony of chlorophyll and sunlight and water, a defiant shout of life in a world of steel and glass.

The power of it was intoxicating.

It was a drink of cool, clear water to a man dying of thirst. It washed over him, momentarily soothing the chronic ache of his own realm’s decay.

Hope, a feeling so foreign it was almost painful, surged through him.

Kaelen opened his eyes.

They were the grey of a coming storm, and in their depths, a pinpoint of silver light now glowed with purpose.

The song was a beacon, and he was a ship lost at sea. He could feel its direction. East.

Not far.

He pushed off the wall, his movements economical and predatory.

The glamour settled around him more securely, a cloak of anonymity. He was Kael now.

Just Kael.

A man with a purpose in a city of millions. No one would see the Prince of a dying court, the desperate thief in the dark.

They would only see what he wanted them to.

He stepped out of the alley and onto the cracked sidewalk, the relentless river of humanity parting around him.

The pulse of the garden grew stronger with every step he took, pulling him forward like a magnetic current.

It called to the Seelie magic in his blood, a siren song of salvation.

He rounded a corner, and the feeling intensified exponentially. The air here smelled different.

Beneath the exhaust fumes, there was the rich, living scent of damp soil and blooming night phlox.

The raw, untamed power was a physical presence, a warm wave washing over the sidewalk. It originated from behind a high, wrought-iron fence overrun with climbing roses and morning glories.

He stopped.

Through the bars, he saw it.

An impossible oasis of green life blazing under the sodium streetlights. It was more vibrant, more potent, than he could have ever imagined.

The very air inside hummed with a power that made the hair on his arms stand on end. This was the place.

This was the Heartseed’s cradle.

And in the center of it all, a lone figure moved in the deepening twilight, a watering can in her hand.

A woman. Her back was to him, but he could see the wild cascade of her dark curls and the determined set of her shoulders.

As she tilted the can to water a bed of thirsty-looking herbs, a pulse of energy, warm and bright and fiercely protective, emanated not just from the garden, but from her.

Kaelen’s breath caught in his chest. The Seers had told him of the Heartseed.

They had not told him it had a guardian. A tender. One whose own life force was so deeply, inextricably woven into the magic he had come to claim.

A new, cold realization dawned. This would not be a simple retrieval.

To take the Heartseed, he would have to go through her.

He watched her trace the line of a leaf with her finger, a gesture of such intimate communion it made his heart ache with a strange, unwelcome pang.

She was a part of this place.

And this place was the only thing that could save his home.

His jaw tightened.

The grim determination returned, colder and harder than before. He would do what he must.

For his people. For his world.

He would learn her weaknesses, dismantle her defenses, and if necessary, he would break her heart to get what he came for.

The Prince of the Silverwood Court gripped the cold iron of the fence, his knuckles white. The mission was clear.

He had found it.

And now, he would take it.

Chapter 2: A Thorny First Encounter

Kaelen of the Silverwood Court walked through Brooklyn as if treading on broken glass.

The human world was a cacophony, a relentless assault of jarring sounds and acrid smells that scraped at his Fae senses.

The shriek of a distant siren, the cloying sweetness of manufactured perfume, the greasy tang of street food—it was all a kind of slow poison.

He had wrapped his glamour around himself like a shroud, muting the sensory overload and shaping his appearance into something mortals would find palatable, if not forgettable… dark, well-fitting trousers, a charcoal Henley that hinted at a physique sculpted by centuries of swordsmanship, and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.

He was Kael, a landscape consultant. The lie felt heavy and clumsy on his tongue.

But amidst the dissonant symphony of the city, one pure note sang out, a low, resonant thrum that had guided him from the alley.

It was the hum of life, of raw, untamed magic, and it emanated from the oasis of green nestled between two brick tenements.

The community garden.

From across the street, he watched its heart beat.

The magic wasn’t subtle; it pulsed in waves of emerald and gold, visible to his eyes as a faint shimmer in the air.

This was the work of the Heartseed, a relic of the Old Magics that had been lost for generations. And here it was, sunk into the dirt of a mortal city, tended by unsuspecting hands.

His mission was simple, desperate, and cruel: retrieve the Heartseed, take it back to his fading realm, and save his people, even if it meant turning this vibrant paradise to dust.

He crossed the street, the wrought-iron gate of the garden standing open like an invitation.

Inside, a woman was on her knees, her back to him. She wore faded jeans, a stained t-shirt, and had a wild mane of auburn hair pulled back in a messy knot, from which several tendrils had escaped to frame a face smudged with dirt.

She was humming softly, a tuneless melody, as her fingers worked through the soil around a cluster of tomato plants, coaxing a stray vine onto its stake with a practiced gentleness.

This was Rowan Finch. The garden’s tender. The obstacle.

As he drew closer, Kael’s senses sharpened, and a frown tightened his lips.

He had expected the garden itself to be the sole font of power, the Heartseed its engine.

But as he focused, he realized he was wrong.

A significant current of that raw, green magic wasn’t just in the soil—it was flowing from her. It coiled around her wrists like living bracelets, infused the air she breathed, and pulsed in time with her own heartbeat.

She wasn’t just the garden’s keeper; she was its anchor, its conduit.

This changed everything.

He cleared his throat, a sound intentionally designed to be polite yet firm. “Excuse me. Rowan Finch?”

She startled, her head snapping up.

Her eyes, the color of moss after a rain, widened before narrowing in suspicion.

She rose to her feet in a single, fluid motion, wiping a muddy hand on her jeans. “Can I help you?”

Her voice was wary, laced with the defensive edge of a New Yorker who knew that nothing good ever came from a stranger in a clean shirt.

“My name is Kael,” he said, his voice a low, smooth baritone he’d carefully calibrated for human ears. “I’m a landscape consultant. I was hoping to speak with you about this incredible space.”

Rowan’s eyes swept over him, taking in the expensive-looking boots that were entirely too pristine for a garden, the sharp line of his jaw, and the unnerving stillness in his gaze.

He didn’t look like a consultant. He looked like a predator who’d wandered into the wrong ecosystem. “A consultant for who?” she asked, her tone flat. “If you’re from Vex Development, you can turn right around. We’re not selling.”

“I’m not with Vex,” he replied, managing to keep the distaste from his voice.

Dealing with Unseelie-backed corporations was an unwelcome complication. “I work independently. I specialize in urban green spaces facing… aggressive redevelopment.”

He chose his words carefully, weaving a plausible fiction. “I heard about your garden’s fight. I was in the area and was drawn to the… vitality here. It’s remarkable.”

He took a step closer, his gaze sweeping over the beds of thriving vegetables and flowers, but his Fae senses were stretching out, probing, trying to pinpoint the Heartseed’s exact location.

He could feel it now, a deep, warm pulse beneath the earth near an ancient-looking rose bush at the garden’s center.

Rowan didn’t relax. If anything, she grew more rigid. “The ‘vitality’ comes from good soil, hard work, and a community that cares. It’s not a commodity.” She crossed her arms, a clear barrier. “So, what do you really want, Kael?”

He was struck by the directness of her challenge. In his Court, conversation was a dance of layered meanings and subtle gestures.

This mortal woman wielded honesty like a blade. It was… refreshing.

And deeply irritating.

“I want to understand what makes this place unique,” he said, meeting her gaze.

His eyes, a cool silver-grey, held an intensity that made the back of her neck prickle. “Every successful garden has a focal point, a source of its unique bio-energetic signature. Yours is stronger than any I’ve ever encountered. I’d like to study it. Perhaps I can help you articulate its value in a way that city planners and, more importantly, your opponents, can’t ignore.”

Bio-energetic signature.

The corporate jargon was like a red flag. Rowan felt a familiar wave of protective anger.

This man, with his smooth words and designer clothes, saw her garden as a data point. He wanted to quantify its soul.

“It’s dirt, compost, and water, not a science experiment,” she retorted. “We don’t need our ‘value articulated.’ We need developers to leave us alone.”

Kael felt a flicker of impatience.

This was not going as planned.

He needed access, time to study the Heartseed and her connection to it before he could devise a way to sever them both.

He could compel her, of course.

A simple glamour, a whispered suggestion, and she would welcome him with open arms.

But the raw power flowing through her gave him pause. A compulsion might backfire, alert her to his nature, or worse, damage the very connection he needed to understand.

He softened his approach. “Forgive me. I’m being clinical. What I mean is, this garden feels different. Alive in a way that defies simple explanation. You’ve created something special here, Ms. Finch.”

He allowed a sliver of genuine admiration to color his tone. It wasn’t entirely a lie.

The life force here was a balm to his starved senses, a stark, painful contrast to the creeping decay of his home.

For the first time, Rowan hesitated. His compliment landed differently than the fawning praise of visiting politicians or the polite remarks of neighbors.

There was a weight to his words, as if he truly saw the life humming beneath her feet.

And then there was the way he looked at her, an unnerving focus that seemed to see more than just a gardener with dirt under her nails. It was distracting. He was distracting.

“It’s just Rowan,” she said, her tone softening a fraction. “And the garden is a team effort.”

“Of course,” Kael inclined his head. “But you’re its heart, aren’t you?”

The question was too intimate, too perceptive.

It sent a jolt through her, a strange mix of recognition and alarm. “I’m just the one who pulls the most weeds,” she deflected, turning away to pinch a yellowing leaf from a basil plant.

The simple, familiar action helped ground her.

Kael watched her, a knot of frustration tightening in his chest. She was a beautiful, infuriating paradox.

Her hands, though stained with soil, moved with an innate grace. The sun caught the red highlights in her hair, making it gleam like polished copper.

For a fleeting, unwelcome moment, he felt a stir of warmth in the cold, hollow space his mission had carved inside him. It was a flicker of curiosity about the woman herself, not just the magic she unknowingly wielded.

He ruthlessly crushed the feeling. Such distractions were a weakness his dying world could not afford.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the bed of prize-winning roses near the garden’s center. He knew, instinctively, that this was the epicenter. “The soil composition here must be perfect.”

Warily, she nodded. He knelt, his movements unnervingly silent, and placed a hand flat on the earth beside the oldest, gnarliest bush. He closed his eyes.

The world fell away. He was no longer in Brooklyn. He was adrift in a sea of pure life.

The Heartseed pulsed against his palm like a living thing, a torrent of magic so potent it made him dizzy.

He felt the network of roots spreading beneath the entire block, each one a conduit for its power.

And woven through it all, as inextricable as thread in a tapestry, was Rowan’s own life force.

Bright, fierce, and wild.

Taking the seed wouldn’t just kill the garden. He suspected it might kill her, or at least sever a part of her soul.

He pulled his hand back as if burned, his breath catching in his throat.

He opened his eyes to find Rowan watching him, her expression a mixture of suspicion and a new, unsettling curiosity.

“Find what you were looking for?” she asked, her voice quiet.

Kael stood, brushing nonexistent dust from his knee. His carefully constructed composure was fractured.

She was not an obstacle. She was the lock, and the key, and the treasure itself, all in one. His mission had just become infinitely more complicated.

“Yes,” he said, his voice strained. “And no.”

He looked at her, and for a moment, the mask of the consultant slipped, revealing the grim weight of a prince on a desperate quest. “This place is more complex than I imagined.”

An unwelcome thrill went through Rowan. He saw it. He actually saw it. But the feeling was immediately chased by suspicion. Who was this man?

“Look, Kael,” she said, her resolve hardening again. “I appreciate your… interest. But we’re not looking for consultants. We’re fine on our own.”

It was a clear dismissal.

A foolish part of him, the part that had felt that dangerous flicker of warmth, was stung by the rejection.

The prince, the warrior, was grimly amused by the sensation.

“I believe you are,” he said smoothly, the mask back in place. “But Vex won’t give up easily. You may find you need an ally who understands the value of what you’re protecting.” He gave her a long, unreadable look. “I’ll be in touch.”

He turned and walked away, his stride measured and silent, leaving Rowan standing alone among her plants.

The garden felt suddenly too quiet, the air still humming where he had stood.

She watched him disappear onto the bustling sidewalk, a perfectly tailored enigma who had seen straight through to the garden’s heart and left her with a thorny, unsettling feeling of being truly seen for the first time.

And she couldn’t decide if that was a promise, or a threat.

Chapter 3: Sowing the Seeds of Deception

The grimy Brooklyn alley had become Kael’s reluctant sanctuary.

From its mouth, he could watch the constant, chaotic ballet of human life flow past the wrought-iron fence of the garden. He had spent the night in the shell of a nearby abandoned building, a place of dust and decay that felt more familiar to him than the city’s vibrant thrum.

Sleep had offered no respite, only dreams of silver trees turning to ash.

His mission was a simple, brutal equation: retrieve the Heartseed, save his home.

But the variable he hadn’t accounted for was Rowan Finch.

She wasn’t just a guardian; she was an integral part of the garden’s magic.

He had felt it the moment he’d seen her, her life force a brilliant green-gold thread woven through every leaf and petal.

A direct assault was impossible. Taking the seed while she was so deeply attuned to it would be like tearing a vital organ from a living creature.

It could unravel her.

The thought sent a disquieting tremor through him, a feeling so alien he almost mistook it for a flaw in his glamour.

He was a prince of the Silverwood Court, a warrior trained to put duty before all else. This flicker of concern for a mortal was a liability.

He needed a new strategy. Not force, but infiltration. He would have to become a weed in her garden, wrapping his roots around hers until he was close enough to strike.

He adjusted his glamour, softening the sharp, otherworldly planes of his face into something more humanly handsome.

He muted the silver in his eyes to a cool grey and allowed a faint, calculated scruff to shadow his jawline.

He was no longer a Seelie prince, but Kael, a landscape consultant—a lie that tasted like iron on his tongue. He stepped out of the alley, the morning sun feeling thin and foreign on his skin, and walked toward the gate.

Rowan was on her knees, her back to him, wrestling with a stubborn patch of bindweed that was attempting to strangle a row of young tomato plants.

Her brow was furrowed in concentration, a smudge of dirt accentuating her cheekbone.

The raw, untamed power of the garden pulsed around her, a chaotic symphony to his Fae senses. In his dying world, magic was a faint, fading whisper.

Here, it was a roar—the frantic buzz of a hundred bees, the silent, relentless push of roots through soil, the collective sigh of leaves drinking in the light.

It was overwhelming, intoxicating, and a little bit terrifying.

He cleared his throat. “Good morning.”

She startled, dropping a clump of weeds and twisting around.

Her eyes, the color of moss after a rain, narrowed with immediate suspicion. “You again.”

“I believe we got off on the wrong foot,” he said, keeping his voice smooth and even.

He gestured vaguely at the garden. “This place… it’s remarkable. A testament to your work.”

Her suspicion didn’t waver. “What do you want, Kael? If you’re here with another offer from Vex, you can save your breath.”

“On the contrary,” he said, taking a careful step closer. “I’m here to offer my help in fighting them.”

That stopped her. She rose slowly to her feet, wiping her soiled hands on her jeans. “Help? Why would a ‘consultant’ they hired want to help me?”

Here was the delicate part.

The lie had to be woven from threads of truth. “Vex Development has a reputation. I’ve seen what they do. They gut places with history, with ecological value, and replace them with glass and steel. They hired me for an initial assessment, that’s all. When I saw what they intended to do here, I couldn’t be a part of it.” He let a note of manufactured righteousness enter his tone. “I quit.”

Rowan crossed her arms, her skepticism a palpable shield. “And now you’ve had a crisis of conscience? Forgive me if I don’t break out the welcome banner.”

“Don’t,” he said. “I’m not asking for your trust. I’m offering my expertise. I know how corporations like Vex operate. They use teams of lawyers and botanists to dismiss community gardens as temporary, non-essential green spaces. I can help you create a biodiversity report, a soil composition analysis, a documented history of this land that will stand up in court. I can give you the ammunition you need to fight them.”

He paused, letting the offer sink in. “All I ask in return is the chance to study this place. For my own research.”

Her internal conflict was plain on her face.

Her jaw was tight with distrust, but her eyes flickered with a desperate hope.
He had found her weakness: her fierce, boundless love for this patch of earth. She would do anything to save it, even if it meant letting the enemy through the gates.

“Why?” she finally asked, her voice quiet. “Why would you do all that for free?”

“Let’s just say I have a personal interest in seeing unique ecosystems preserved,” he said, the truth of his words a bitter ache in his chest.

She chewed on her lower lip, her gaze sweeping over his face, searching for the lie.

He held perfectly still, his glamour a flawless mask over the frantic purpose that drove him.

Finally, she let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“Fine,” she conceded, the word tasting like defeat. “You can help. But you work under my direction. You touch nothing without my permission. And I will be watching every move you make.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he said, allowing himself a small, disarming smile. It was a victory, but it felt hollow.

Their tense agreement was interrupted by a familiar voice. “Ro? Brought you a peace offering.”

A young man with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder and a cardboard tray of coffees in his hand entered the garden.

He had a wiry energy and intelligent, restless eyes that immediately landed on Kael and sharpened with alarm.

“Liam, this is Kael,” Rowan said, her tone strained. “He’s… a new volunteer.”

Liam’s smile was tight and entirely unwelcoming as he handed a coffee to Rowan. “Volunteer? Funny, he looks more like the corporate shark you were complaining about yesterday.”

“Liam, please,” Rowan muttered, shooting him a warning look.

Kael extended a hand. “Kaelen. Most people just call me Kael.” He offered his cover story with practiced ease. “It’s a pleasure.”

Liam ignored the hand. “Liam Porter. I’m Rowan’s friend. And I do background checks for a living.” The words were not an introduction; they were a threat. Kael’s smile didn’t falter, but a cold knot formed in his stomach.

This human was sharp. Another unforeseen variable.

“Fascinating,” Kael replied smoothly. “Then you’ll understand the importance of thorough research, which is exactly what I’m here to do.”

The air crackled with unspoken hostility until Rowan stepped between them. “Okay, that’s enough. Kael, you can start by helping me document the heirloom varietals over by the east wall. Liam, walk with me.”

She led her friend away, their voices dropping to urgent whispers. Kael didn’t need Fae hearing to know what they were talking about.

He turned his attention to the task, kneeling by a trellis of climbing beans. His fingers brushed against a leaf, and the sheer life force of the plant jolted through him.

He closed his eyes, overwhelmed. The scent of damp soil filled his lungs—not the sterile loam of the royal greenhouses, but a rich, complex perfume of decay and rebirth, teeming with a billion microscopic lives.

The hum of the city faded, replaced by the thrumming pulse of the garden, a current that flowed from the earth, through the plants, and—he could feel it now, a magnetic pull—emanated from a central point near the ancient-looking oak tree at the garden’s heart.

The Heartseed.

He was closer than ever. But as he knelt there, surrounded by this riotous, defiant life, he felt the first true tendrils of fear.

Not for his mission, but for himself. The ordered, silent world of the Silverwood Court had prepared him for battle and diplomacy, for the cold calculus of sacrifice.

It had not prepared him for this overwhelming sensory onslaught. It had not prepared him for the way Rowan’s own essence was tangled up in it, a bright, warm light that drew him in even as it burned.

Later that afternoon, Rowan’s phone buzzed. It was Liam.

“I’m sending you something,” he said, his voice clipped and serious. “Open it.”

She wiped sweat from her brow and tapped open the message. It was a screenshot of a database search, the name ‘Kaelen’ typed in the search bar.

Below it, in stark red letters, were the words: NO RESULTS FOUND.

“I ran him through every public and private database I have access to,” Liam’s voice crackled over the phone. “Credit history, property records, social media, DMV, you name it. Ro, this guy doesn’t exist. He’s a ghost. There is no record of anyone by that name matching his description anywhere.”

A cold dread trickled down Rowan’s spine, chilling her despite the afternoon heat. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s a professional. He’s a corporate spy, Rowan, probably from Vex’s black ops division or whatever. His name is an alias, his story is a lie. He’s here to get inside, find a weakness, and help them tear this place down.”

She looked across the garden, where Kael was meticulously sketching the vein patterns on a squash leaf, his focus absolute.

He looked like a scholar, a naturalist. Not a corporate saboteur. And yet… the feeling that he was too perfect, too polished, had been there from the start.

“But the things he knows, Liam,” she argued, more to convince herself than him. “He identified a species of heritage corn I’ve been trying to classify for months just by looking at the tassel. His advice on amending the soil for the acid-loving plants was brilliant. If he’s a spy, he’s the most overqualified one in history.”

“That’s what makes him dangerous,” Liam insisted. “He’s playing you. Don’t trust him, Ro. Get him out of there.”

The call ended, leaving Rowan in a turmoil of suspicion and reluctant need. Every instinct screamed that Liam was right. But every hope she had for saving the garden whispered that Kael might be her only chance.

As the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the plots, Kael packed up his sketchbook.

He had spent the day immersed in the garden, his Fae senses on fire.

He was a being of fading light adrift in an ocean of life, and the proximity to Rowan was a constant, low-grade fever.

Her scent—of soil, and sunshine, and something uniquely, fiercely her—clung to the air. Every time she brushed past him, his glamour flickered, a dangerous ripple on a calm surface.

He was sowing the seeds of deception, as planned. But as he watched Rowan lock the gate for the night, her shoulders slumped with the weight of her fight, he felt an unexpected, unwelcome pang.

He was not a weed in her garden. He was a blight.

And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to his ancient soul, that when he finally tore the Heartseed from this soil, the devastation he would leave in his wake would be far greater than he had ever imagined.

Chapter 4: An Unexpected Bloom

The uneasy truce held for two days.

It was a fragile thing, woven from Rowan’s grudging acceptance of Kael’s help and his own carefully constructed facade of a mild-mannered volunteer.

They worked in a state of charged silence, a bubble of awareness around them so potent that the usual chatter from other gardeners seemed to fade at its edges.

Rowan assigned him the most grueling, least glamorous tasks: turning the compost heap, hauling bags of mulch, weeding the stubborn crabgrass that crept in from the sidewalk.

She watched him from the corner of her eye, expecting him to complain or quit. He did neither.

He worked with an unnerving, silent efficiency, his movements economical and precise, his brow never breaking a sweat in the humid August air.

It was infuriating.

Liam’s warning echoed in her mind: He’s a ghost, Ro. No records, no history. He’s a plant. A corporate plant, sent by Vex to learn the garden’s weaknesses.

But the man hauling a wheelbarrow full of soil didn’t look like a spy.

He looked… solid. Grounded. His focus on the earth was absolute, and a traitorous part of her couldn’t help but admire it.

The trouble started, as it often did, with the roses.

Her ‘Brooklyn Belles,’ a variety she’d cultivated herself, were the undisputed queens of the garden. Their petals were the deep, velvety red of a theater curtain, their fragrance a heady mix of spice and honey.

They were her masterpiece, her bid for a blue ribbon at the upcoming borough botanical show.

But this morning, they were sick.

“No, no, no,” she whispered, her fingers hovering over a leaf. Where there should have been glossy green, there was a creeping blackness, an oily, web-like blight that seemed to drink the light.

The thorns on the stems looked longer, sharper, crueler than she remembered, tipped with a venomous-looking purple. She touched a petal, and it felt brittle, like old paper, crumbling to dust under her thumb.

Panic, cold and sharp, pricked her skin.

This wasn’t a normal fungus. Not black spot, not rust.

She’d seen it all, and this was alien. Wrong.

She spent an hour trying her trusted remedies—neem oil, a copper fungicide spray, even a desperate mix of baking soda and soap. Nothing worked.

The blight seemed to mock her efforts, spreading from one bush to the next as she watched.

Kael found her kneeling in the dirt, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

He’d been clearing stones from a new bed at the far end of the garden, but he must have sensed her distress.

Or perhaps, she thought bitterly, he was just here to document her failure for his Vex paymasters.

He stopped a few feet away. “What is it?”

“My roses,” she said, her voice tight. “Something’s killing them.”

Kael stepped closer, his shadow falling over her.

He crouched, his gaze fixed on the diseased leaves. Rowan watched his face, expecting to see the detached curiosity of a consultant. Instead, she saw a flicker of something else in his cool grey eyes.

Recognition.

And a cold, controlled anger.

His glamour couldn’t completely hide the shift in his posture.
He leaned forward, and for a split second, the air around him seemed to hum, the light bending just slightly.

He inhaled deeply, not through his nose, but as if tasting the air itself. Rowan blinked, shaking her head.

The humidity must be getting to her.

“This is not a natural pestilence,” he said, his voice a low murmur.

“Of course it is,” she snapped, her defensiveness rising. “It’s just… an aggressive new strain of something.”

He looked at her, and his gaze was so direct, so full of ancient knowing, that it stole the breath from her lungs. “No,” he said softly. “This is a wound. It’s deliberate.”

Before she could process the strange pronouncement, he was standing up, his mind clearly working. The Unseelie. Morwen.

This was a probe, a poisoned dart aimed at the garden’s heart to test its defenses. And its primary defender—Rowan—was armed with nothing but horticultural sprays.

The thought of her facing this dark magic alone sent a surge of fury through him so potent it almost cracked his human guise. He had to act.

“My grandmother… she was from the old country,” he began, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth. “She had remedies for things like this. Blights that defy modern science.”

Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “The old country? Liam said you didn’t have a history, let alone a grandmother from ‘the old country.’”

Kael kept his expression placid, a mask of calm he’d perfected over centuries. “Your friend is skilled with computers. My family has always preferred to keep to themselves. Some things aren’t found on the internet.”

He gestured to the roses. “Do you want to save them, or do you want to debate my ancestry?”

The ultimatum hung in the air. Her pride warred with the desperate love she had for her plants. Looking at the wilting Belles, she felt their silent pain like a physical ache in her own chest. Her love won.

“Fine,” she clipped out. “What do we do, witch doctor?”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “We need mint, lavender, and yarrow. And a stone mortar and pestle.”

They gathered the ingredients from the garden’s herb spiral.

Rowan watched as he selected the plants with an expert’s touch, choosing the most vibrant stalks of mint, the most fragrant lavender blooms.

In the potting shed, a cramped space that smelled of damp earth and fertilizer, he set the stone bowl on the workbench.

“Crush them,” he instructed. “All together. We need to release the essential oils.”

The shed was small, forcing them into a proximity that felt both suffocating and electric.

Rowan took the pestle, her knuckles brushing his as he steadied the bowl. Her skin tingled where they’d touched.

She ignored it, focusing her frustration and fear into the grinding motion. The herbs broke down, releasing a clean, sharp scent that filled the small space.

“Harder,” Kael urged, his voice close to her ear. “Bruise them until they weep.”

He placed his hand over hers on the pestle.

His palm was warm and surprisingly calloused, blanketing her hand completely.

A different kind of heat bloomed in her chest, confusing and unwelcome. Under his guidance, the grinding became more efficient, a steady, rhythmic pulse. As they worked, Kael closed his eyes.

He wasn’t just guiding her.

He was channeling a sliver of his own power, a thread of pure Seelie magic, into the poultice. He disguised it with the scent of the herbs, weaving the golden light of life into the green mash.

He could feel the garden’s own magic, the faint thrum of the Heartseed, responding to his call, recognizing a kindred energy.

The effort made his temples throb, but he pushed on, feeling the blight’s foul tendrils through the very soil beneath his feet.

When they were done, the bowl contained a thick, fragrant green paste. “Now we apply it,” he said, his voice a little strained.

They carried the bowl back to the rose beds. The blight had spread further, the black veins now crawling up the stems toward the remaining buds.

“You have to coat the base of the stem and the afflicted leaves,” Kael instructed. “Directly onto the plant.”

Rowan dipped her fingers into the cool paste.

It felt soothing against her skin. She knelt and began to gently massage the remedy onto the lowest leaves of the first bush.

Kael knelt beside her, mirroring her actions on the next. They worked in tandem, a silent, focused team. The shared, rhythmic work was almost meditative, breaking down the walls between them piece by piece.

She found herself watching his hands. They were strong, deft, moving with a reverence for the plant that she recognized because it was her own. He wasn’t some corporate stooge. No one could fake that kind of care.

The afternoon sun beat down, turning the garden into a humid sanctuary.

They were working on the final bush, their shoulders brushing, their breaths mingling with the scent of mint and ozone. Rowan reached for the last dollop of the paste in the bowl at the same time he did.

Their hands met.

It wasn’t a brush. It wasn’t static. It was a jolt, a blinding white-hot spark that leaped between their fingertips.

A current of pure energy shot up Rowan’s arm, making her gasp, the hair on her arms standing on end. For a dizzying second, the world dissolved into pure sensation: the smell of lightning, the taste of honey, the sound of a single, resonant bell chime.

She saw an image flash behind her eyes—a forest of silver trees under a twilight sky—and felt a profound, aching sorrow that was not her own.

Kael flinched back as if burned, snatching his hand away.

He stared at her, his grey eyes wide with shock, the carefully constructed mask of the human volunteer completely gone. In its place was the raw, unguarded astonishment of a Fae prince who had just touched a sun.
He had felt it too—not just his own Seelie magic arcing back at him, but her power, raw and untamed, rushing to meet it. It was the energy of the Heartseed, yes, but it was intrinsically, irrevocably her.

It was wild and green and fiercely protective, a force of nature sleeping in the veins of a Brooklyn botanist.

They both scrambled to their feet, putting space between them. The air crackled, thick with unspoken questions.

“What was that?” Rowan breathed, her heart hammering against her ribs. She rubbed her fingers, which still tingled with a phantom warmth.

Kael swallowed, his composure returning, but not before she saw the flicker of panic in his eyes. “Static,” he said, his voice rough. “The humidity.”

It was the most ridiculous, flimsy lie she had ever heard. They both knew it. That was no mere spark. It was a connection, a live wire they had stumbled upon in the dark.

She looked from his guarded face to the rose bush. The change was already visible. The oily blackness was receding from the edges of the leaves, like a shadow retreating from the dawn. A faint, golden-green light seemed to pulse from the stems where they had applied the poultice, a healthy, vital glow that was undeniably magical.

The remedy was working. His impossible, old-world remedy was saving her roses.

The pestilence was gone, but in its place, something far more dangerous had taken root.

Standing there in the golden afternoon light, surrounded by the scent of healing herbs and wet earth, Rowan looked at the stranger in her garden and felt a terrifying bloom of her own—a tangled, thorny thing mixing suspicion, gratitude, and a bewildering, potent attraction.

And Kael, Prince of the fading Silverwood, looked at the mortal woman whose power had just answered his, and knew with chilling certainty that his mission, his duty, and his heart were all in calamitous, undeniable peril.

Chapter 5: The Corporate Offensive

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.

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