The moon hung in the ink-black sky like a cold, judgmental eye, casting a harsh silver glare over the skeletal remains of the Blackwood gardens. It was a place of ghosts. Elena moved through the twisting stone paths, her boots crunching on fallen leaves that sounded like breaking bones. She needed to breathe. She needed air that wasn't saturated with the sulfurous rot of Selene’s magic or the suffocating, magnetic pull of Cassian’s presence.
Here, the scent of jasmine was a physical weight. It was cloying and sweet, a thick perfume that tried to mask the smell of damp earth and ancient secrets.
"The jasmine always smelled strongest right before a storm. Do you remember?"
The voice rumbled from the shadows of a weeping willow, low and gravelly, vibrating through the air until it settled
