Chapter 10: Delphine

I didn’t expect to see him again so soon.

After the strange surge in the leyline map and Cassian’s not-so-veiled threats, I’d planned to spend the night reworking my warding patterns and not thinking about Theron Valemont’s voice in the back of my skull. I was mid-ritual—salt circle laid, candles relit, notebook open to page seven of increasingly worried observations—when another note appeared.

Slid under my door. Again. No knock. No warning.

Just the familiar cold, precise handwriting that made something sharp curl low in my stomach.

Meet me in the greenhouse. Midnight. —T

No greeting. No request. Just another demand wrapped in distance and frost.

Naturally, I went.

Not because he asked. But because I wanted to know why.

—

Midnight in Castle Thorne was a different kind of quiet. Not empty. Never empty. But hushed, like the walls were listening. Judging.

The greenhouse sat beyond the east courtyard, tucked between two ancient spires and surrounded by creeping bramble. Moonlight poured through the arched glass panes, illuminating tangled vines and pale, glowing flowers that blinked open as I approached—like the place itself was waking to witness whatever this meeting was about.

The door opened with a whisper of steel and wood.

Inside, the air was warm and fragrant, thick with the scent of moss and citrus and something older—an herb I couldn’t name but immediately distrusted. Biolights drifted lazily between hanging vines, casting golden halos across the stone path. The effect was stunning and otherworldly.

And at the center of it all, of course, stood Theron.

Black coat. Hands clasped behind his back. Hair just slightly disheveled from the breeze. He looked like he’d stepped from the pages of a cursed fairytale—the kind with blood and broken vows and too many teeth.

He didn’t turn at first. Just said, without looking, “You came.”

“You left me no choice,” I replied, stepping onto the path. “You could try asking next time, you know. It's a concept called basic courtesy.”

He finally looked at me.

And, for once, there was no mask. No walls. Just his face—tired, haunted, and lit by soft garden light. He didn’t speak immediately. I didn’t press.

“The castle is changing,” he said eventually, voice low.

“I noticed,” I said. “It lit my spell circle on fire earlier. Twice.”

Theron’s lips twitched. Not a smile, not exactly. But something close. “I thought you’d find your way to the central map eventually.”

“You mean the unstable magical spiderweb trying to devour me through the floor?” I tilted my head. “Yeah. I found it.”

He stepped aside, motioning toward a darkened corner of the greenhouse. There, nestled in a circular recess surrounded by twisted vines, sat a stone basin—dry, but faintly glowing.

“This was once a restorative spring,” he said. “Tied to the leyline beneath the castle. Ten months ago, it turned black.”

I crouched beside the basin, brushing my fingers lightly over the rim. The stone pulsed beneath my skin—faint but active. Hungry.

“You didn’t mention this in the job description.”

“No one else could feel it,” he said simply. “Not until you.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

He met my gaze. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

The silence stretched between us like a taut thread, humming with tension and unanswered questions. The air around him felt different tonight—not colder, but heavier. He looked… frayed. Like someone holding a door shut against a storm that was finally forcing its way through.

“What do you think it is?” I asked, standing slowly.

“I think it’s part of the curse,” he said. “Part of the vault beneath the West Tower.”

I blinked. “Then why show me this now?”

He looked away. “Because I needed to know what you would do.”

“And?” I asked, heart ticking a little faster.

“You stayed.”

He said it like it meant something. Like it mattered more than he wanted it to.

“You’re not like the others,” he added, softer now. “The Council sent spellcasters. Enforcers. People who followed rules. You don’t.”

I stepped closer. “So what do you think I am?”

He held my gaze. “A complication.”

“I get that a lot.”

“And yet…” he trailed off, voice unreadable.

“And yet you keep summoning me,” I said, taking another step. “Into your garden. Into your secrets.”

Into your silence.

His expression shifted—just slightly. Like something inside him tilted.

“You’re dangerous,” he said.

“And you like dangerous things,” I replied, letting the words linger between us.

The silence that followed was different than before. It wasn’t distance. It was gravity.

I could feel it in the way his shoulders tensed, in the way his eyes darkened, in the stillness that bloomed between us like a breath held too long.

“I don’t know what the castle wants from you,” he said quietly. “But it’s not done. And it won’t let you go.”

I reached out, just briefly, and placed two fingers over the rim of the basin again. Magic pulsed beneath the surface—sharp, ancient, and unmistakably aware.

“It doesn’t scare me,” I said.

“It should,” he whispered.

His voice was close now. I looked up—and realized he’d stepped toward me without sound, without warning. Only inches separated us.

Too close to be polite. Not close enough to be safe.

The moment stretched, sharp and suspended.

I swallowed, breath catching. “Theron…”

“I’ve lost people to this castle,” he said softly. “To what’s buried beneath it. If I lose—”

“You won’t,” I cut in, firmer than I felt.

He didn’t pull away. Didn’t move.

But he didn’t kiss me, either.

Instead, his hand brushed past mine as he turned, stepping away again, walls rising just as swiftly as they’d fallen.

“This basin is yours now,” he said, voice back to clipped control. “Study it. Use it. But be careful.”

I nodded slowly. “You’re very fond of that word.”

“I’m very used to needing it.”

He walked away, boots silent on the stone path, cloak trailing behind him like night folded into silk.

I stood alone, heart beating loud enough to drown out the hum of the leyline.

And when I turned back to the spring, its glow had changed—brighter now.

Like it had heard everything.

Like it had been waiting for the moment something between us shifted.

Because something had.

And the castle knew it, too.