The Academy's garden wasn't a garden in the traditional sense. It grew mostly at night, moaned when pruned, and was rumored to eat first-years who strayed from the gravel path. Officially, it was called The Grove of Lunar Flora. Unofficially, it was known as The Garden of Teeth.
Naturally, it was Rose's favorite place on campus.
She walked the winding path, boots crunching on salt-lined stones. Around her, blossoms of nightshade and whispervines leaned toward her presence. Some opened slowly, revealing glowing petals. Others blinked. Literally. With eyelids.
She knelt beside a particularly sullen thistle that hissed when touched. "Relax. I'm not here to pluck your head off." The plant stopped hissing but sulked visibly.
Nimbus hovered over her shoulder. "You're talking to flowers again."
"They listen better than professors," she muttered, standing up.
She wasn't here for the ambiance. She needed to think. Since the Council trial, nothing had returned to normal. Not that her version of "normal" had ever been particularly stable, but there was an edge to everything now—a sense of being watched, judged, measured. Even Belladoma had been more distant, always pulled into private meetings and sending cryptic notes like: "Do not trust the archivist."
Then there was the vial from Ciaran Vex.
She'd hidden it under a loose floorboard in her dorm, triple-warded and surrounded by bramble wards. Still, it called to her like a song with no lyrics.
"You should destroy it," Nimbus said, reading her mind.
"I should," Rose agreed. But she hadn't.
As she turned to leave the garden, a rustle behind the thorn tree made her pause. Her hand twitched, crackling with restrained lightning.
"Who's there?" she called.
A figure stepped out—tall, dark robes, and the distinct air of someone who'd read too much philosophy and never touched grass.
"Basil?" she blinked. "Are you following me again?"
"Don't flatter yourself," he said, though he looked oddly sheepish. "I come here to clear my head."
They stood awkwardly for a beat, both clearly too stubborn to leave first.
"Fine," Rose said, brushing past him toward the moonlit clearing. "But if one of these plants tries to eat you, I'm not saving your noble butt."
Basil followed anyway. "Do you always talk to everything that could kill you?"
"Only the ones worth knowing."
They ended up sitting by a stone bench entwined with soft-blooming poison lilies. The silence between them was less sharp tonight.
After a long pause, Basil said, "I don't hate you, you know."
Rose glanced sideways. "That's not what your tone says when you're mocking me in duels."
He smirked. "That's just how I flirt."
"Oh?" she arched a brow. "Then you're very bad at it."
"I'm out of practice," he admitted. "You're not like the others."
"Neither are you," she said, and didn't try to make it a compliment—but it almost was.
The garden didn't hiss or whisper at that.
It simply bloomed.