Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
The weight of those deaths sits heavy in my chest—especially the innocent ones. The witnesses who saw too much, the bystanders caught in crossfire, the people who died because I wasn’t smart enough or fast enough to save them. Each headstone in this garden represents a life that ended because of me, and some nights that knowledge feels like drowning.
Saylor traces the carved letters of a name I can’t quite make out from this angle. “Do you regret any of them?”
“Every single innocent.” The admission comes out rough. “The guilty ones? No. The world’s better without them breathing. But the others . . .” I trail off, thinking about Peter and how his death still haunts me. “Those are the ones that follow you home.”
The path curves ahead toward a structure I haven’t shown anyone in years. The greenhouse rises from the garden like something conjured from shadow and light—all glass and twisted iron that catches the morning sun and throws it back in fractured rainbows.
Through the glass, I can see what five years and an obscene amount of money bought me. Orchids that shouldn’t exist climb steel supports, their colors bordering on unnatural. Trees heavy with fruit that looks wrong—silver where it should be red, gold where it should be green. Vines wrap around columns in patterns that took three years to train properly.
And everywhere, absolutely everywhere, are roses. Roses in every color imaginable and several that shouldn’t be possible. Blood-red roses the size of dinner plates, white roses so pure they seem to glow, black roses that absorb light rather than reflect it. Some climb the walls in cascading waterfalls of petals; others emerge from carefully tended beds in perfect geometric patterns.
In the heart of the greenhouse, a gazebo built from living trees creates a perfect circle of green walls and a flowering roof. The branches have been trained and woven together over years of careful tending, creating a structure that’s both architectural and organic. Roses climb every surface, their blooms creating a canopy of color overhead, while the floor is carpeted in moss, thick like nature’s own velvet.
“How is this possible?” Saylor breathes.
“Money, patience, and a very talented botanist who doesn’t ask questions about my other hobbies.” I push open the greenhouse door, and the scent of growing things washes over us in waves. “Welcome to the one place on the estate where nothing dies unless it’s supposed to.”
We step inside, and the temperature difference is immediately noticeable. The air is warm and humid, heavy with the perfume of a thousand different flowers and the green smell of things growing wild and free. Our footsteps are muffled by the moss that carpets the stone pathways, and everywhere we look, life explodes in patterns too beautiful to be accidental.
“This is insane,” Saylor says, reaching out to touch an orchid whose petals seem to shimmer with their own inner light. “How long did this take to build?”
“Five years for the structure, another three to get the ecosystem balanced.” I watch her explore with the fascination of someone discovering a new world. “It’s my meditation space. When the killing gets too loud in my head, I come here and remember that I can create things as well as destroy them.”
She pauses beside a tree whose branches are heavy with fruit that looks like crystallized honey. “Can I . . . ?”
“Everything in here is safe to touch. Most of it’s safe to eat, although I’d avoid the silver berries unless you want to spend the next six hours seeing colors that don’t exist.”
Saylor laughs, the sound bright and genuine for the first time since this morning. “Hallucinogenic garden fruit. Of course you’d have hallucinogenic garden fruit.”
“The botanist has a sense of humor.”
We make our way toward the living gazebo at the center of the greenhouse, passing a fountain carved from a single piece of jade where water trickles down in patterns that seem to defy gravity. Butterfly bushes where actual butterflies rest in perfect stillness, their wings iridescent in the filtered light. A section where every plant glows with soft bioluminescence, creating an underwater feeling despite being surrounded by air.
When we reach the gazebo, Saylor stops just outside the entrance, her hand resting on one of the living posts. The roses growing here are unlike anything else in the greenhouse—deep blue petals that match my beard exactly, their blooms so perfect they look carved rather than grown.
“You grew roses that match your hair,” she says, wonder threading through her voice.
“I had help. But yes.” I watch her lean closer to inhale. “They don’t exist anywhere else in the world.”
“Just like you.”
The comment hangs between us, and I’m not sure what to do with it. We step inside the gazebo, where the living walls create perfect privacy and the rose canopy overhead filters the remaining sunlight into something magical. The moss beneath our feet is so thick it’s like walking on clouds, and the air itself seems to glitter with magic.