Lilith found him in the walled garden two days later, a place she had dubbed the "Stone Garden" for its paved paths and silent, moss-covered statues. Cassian was tending to a bed of black hellebores, his movements fluid and precise. He looked more solid in the daylight, though the shadows still clung to him like loyal hounds.
"They're poisonous, aren't they?" she asked, announcing her presence.
He didn't look up. "All the most beautiful things here are, Miss Thorne. It's a defense mechanism."
"Lilith," she said, surprising herself. "If you're to be my groundskeeper, you should call me Lilith."
Now he glanced at her, those pale eyes assessing. "As you wish, Lilith." Her name on his tongue was a dark, sweet melody. "You are adjusting to Thornwood?"
"It's… quieter than I'm used to." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I haven't seen you around the grounds during the day before."
"My work is often best done unseen. And at night." He stood, wiping his hands on a cloth. He was taller than she'd remembered. "The estate is vast. There are sections even I do not venture into often. Places where the old magic sleeps deeply."
"Magic?" She tried to sound dismissive, but her curiosity was piqued.
A smile, faint and knowing. "Your aunt never spoke of it? Thornwood is built on a confluence of ley lines. It attracts… peculiarities. The roses that bloom in December. The way the fog never quite leaves the low hollows. The whispers in the old wing of the house."
She'd heard the whispers. She'd blamed the wind in the crumbling chimneys. "You're trying to scare me off."
"On the contrary," he said, taking a step toward her. The air grew cooler. "I am trying to prepare you. This land needs a steward. A true Thorne. Your aunt performed certain… rites. To keep the balance. To ensure the gardens grew and the walls stood."
"What kind of rites?" Her voice was a whisper.
"Simple ones, at first. Offerings to the land. A libation of wine at the oldest oak. The burning of specific herbs at the new moon. She left instructions. I can show you." His gaze was intense, compelling. "Without them, Thornwood will sicken. And a sick land can make a sick home for its inhabitant."
It sounded like superstition, but the certainty in his voice, the oppressive atmosphere of the manor itself, made her wonder. "Why would you help me?"
For a long moment, he was silent. A cloud passed over the sun, plunging the Stone Garden into gloom. "Because I am bound here, Lilith. My fate is tied to Thornwood's. If it falls, I fall with it. Helping you is, in essence, self-preservation."
It was a logical answer, but it felt like only a fragment of the truth. There was a heat in his cold eyes when he looked at her that spoke of something more personal, more possessive.
"Show me," she heard herself say. "Show me what to do."
That night, under a sliver of a moon, Cassian led her to the giant oak at the forest's edge. He gave her a silver chalice and a bottle of deep red wine. "Pour it at the roots," he instructed, his voice low. "And say, 'For the roots that hold, for the branches that shelter.'"
Her hands trembled slightly as she did it. The wine soaked into the earth like blood into a sponge. For a second, nothing happened. Then, a soft, green luminescence pulsed from the moss at the tree's base, flowing up the trunk in faint veins before fading.
Lilith gasped, stepping back into Cassian. His hands came up to steady her shoulders, and a shock, cold and electric, went through her. He held her for a moment longer than necessary, his touch both thrilling and terrifying.
"See?" he murmured, his breath cool against her ear. "The land acknowledges you."
As they walked back to the manor, the path seemed clearer, the night less hostile. She felt a strange, new connection to the earth beneath her feet. And when Cassian bid her goodnight at the door, his fingers brushing hers as he handed back the chalice, she felt a pull so strong it was almost physical.
Alone in her cold bedroom, Lilith didn't feel afraid. She felt alive. The haunting of Thornwood was no longer a passive dread, but an active, seductive mystery. And at the center of it, offering his hand to guide her into the darkness, was Cassian. A man who was clearly more than a man, who spoke of magic as fact, and whose touch left frost and fire on her skin. It was madness. But for the first time since her parents died, the hollow ache inside her was filled not with grief, but with a dangerous, thrilling anticipation.