Page 48 of Song of the Dark Wood

“Good morning,” he said. “I thought I asked you not to come outside alone.”

“I thought that was more of a suggestion. I’m still within the garden walls.” She smiled guiltily, and he shook his head as he tasted burnt sugar on his tongue.Bold little liar. She reached her hand up to brush the hair from her eyes, and in doing so, smeared mud on her cheek.

He stepped closer and Rowan froze, her lips parting in surprise as he rubbed the smudge away with his thumb.

He jerked his hands away. “You had some mud.”

“What is this place?” she asked, climbing to her feet and brushing the dirt off the knees of her dress. She sighed heavily at the mud-stained fabric.

Conor swallowed hard. “The Dark Garden. It used to be that most of the grounds were gardens, but this section was particularly lovely, beautiful flowers of deep purples andscarlets, so dark they were nearly black. As you can see, they’ve all died off. It’s looked like this for many years.”

He didn’t say that this part of the garden had been tended to by someone he cared for many years before. Someone he’d hurt with his monstrosity—a loss that still haunted him and served as a warning not to let his guard down.

Rowan looked around. “Maybe it just needs some love. That’s why I was singing. Sometimes when I—” She stopped short, as if she caught herself sharing too much. “Plants like music.”

Conor looked around at the dried-up, browned plants. She certainly had her work cut out for her, but he supposed it didn’t hurt.

“You should be careful about singing like that. You had an audience of spirits outside of the garden wall that I had to chase back to their jobs,” he said.

“I did?” Rowan’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Wait, you have spiritslaves?”

“They aren’t slaves. They chose to serve. Some spirits aren’t quite ready to cross, or they have some sort of debt that they want to work off, or they simply want to be of service to me and the souls crossing over.”

“Am I allowed to watch?” Rowan asked.

“Watch?”

“When you cross the souls?”

Conor nodded. “There’s nothing to forbid it, although I expect you won’t find it quite as exciting as you expect. The most interesting part is beyond the portal that opens and you cannot cross it because you’re alive, Rowan.”

She chewed her lower lip, looking contemplative.

Conor was about to say more when his gaze snagged on something bright green. He stepped closer to the rosebush. Sure enough, there was one green branch shooting up from the tangleof brown dead ones, and at the end of it, a cluster of buds, one of which bloomed into a dark scarlet rose.

“Mother slay me,” Conor murmured.

“What is it?” Rowan asked. She stepped up next to him, looking at the bush.

“Nothing has bloomed here for years. I don’t know how—” He stopped when he saw the look on her face. “What?”

She shook her head. “I swear it was like that when I came in.”

He licked his lips and tasted burnt sugar. She’d lied twice in one conversation. Rowan was turning out to be a careless liar.

“Are you lying, little Red?” Conor asked.

She bit her lip and looked back at the rose. “Does it matter? I think we’ve established that we are friends—that we need each other right now to figure out a new bargain.”

So that was what she was hoping to do—manipulate him.

Conor grabbed her by the shoulders. “It would be a mistake to look at me and see anything other than a monster.”

“For you or me?” she asked, jutting her chin out defiantly. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he couldn’t tell if it was calculated or accidental. It concerned him that he cared.

He smiled involuntarily, then immediately frowned. He couldn’t remember a time he’d smiled so much. It was yet another sign of his lack of control.

“Is this the version of you that everyone fears?” Rowan asked, her fingers grazing the front of his tunic.

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