"You want to do what?" Elena stared at him.
"Take a day off. A real one. No training. No planning. No Thresholds. Just... a normal day." Leo shrugged, almost sheepishly. "We've been fighting non-stop for a month. Tomorrow night, everything changes - one way or another. I want one day that's just ours."
"A normal day. While the Circle is preparing to wake a four-thousand-year-old entity of pure destruction."
"Especially because of that." He met her eyes. "If we're going to face the end of the world, I'd like to have at least one good memory to hold onto."
Elena was silent for a moment. Then she took his hand.
"Botanical gardens," she said. "I've always wanted to go. Never had time."
The New Harbor Botanical Gardens sprawled across forty acres on the city's eastern edge - a green oasis
