“Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll sleep.”
“You’re not wrong,” the High Priestess said, stepping out from the moon garden’s cypress shadows, her voice a silk thread pulled through dark cloth. “That is why I asked you to come when the flowers keep their secrets.”
The garden was a bowl of pale fragrance. Night-bloom lilies opened like quiet mouths. The gravel paths shone faintly where dew had silvered each stone. Above, the sky was a torn veil; the moon’s ragged edge leaked ghostlight that lay across leaves and skin in a soft, cold wash.
Sienna didn’t sit. The bench was a slab of white stone warmed by daylight, cool now, expectant. She stood with hands loosely at her sides, head high, as if refusing chairs could delay decisions. Her hair caught the light and threw it back in a tired halo. The ma
