I stood motion­less for a moment, watch­ing as Tam­lin dis­ap­peared back into the house, his words lin­ger­ing in the air between us. His warn­ing about the blight affect­ing the land was meant to deter me, yet it only deep­ened my curios­i­ty. As Chap­ter 7 unfolds, the vast expanse of the estate stretched before me, its care­ful­ly tend­ed gar­dens and untamed wilder­ness merg­ing at the edges, form­ing a bound­ary I was cer­tain held more than just flo­ra and fau­na.

Even if escape was impos­si­ble, I need­ed to under­stand the place that now held me cap­tive. The warm breeze car­ried the scent of cit­rus and damp earth, an odd­ly pleas­ant com­bi­na­tion, though it did lit­tle to set­tle my nerves. Alis had been adamant that the grounds were not as safe as they appeared, and though I had no doubt that hid­den dan­gers lurked in the shad­ows, I refused to be a caged bird wait­ing for some­one else to deter­mine my fate.

I moved for­ward cau­tious­ly, step­ping off the stone steps and onto the soft grass that rolled out like an end­less sea of green. The gar­dens, metic­u­lous­ly arranged near the manor, soon gave way to untamed growth, where wild­flow­ers thrived in chaot­ic bursts of col­or, and tow­er­ing trees loomed like silent sen­tinels. A riv­er cut through the estate in the dis­tance, its sur­face glint­ing under the after­noon sun, and I won­dered if it marked the edge of Tamlin’s domain or if the estate sprawled even fur­ther into the unknown.

Despite the beau­ty, there was some­thing unset­tling about the still­ness, as if the land itself was hold­ing its breath. Birds flit­ted between tree branch­es, their melodies cheer­ful but restrained, as though they too under­stood that some­thing unnat­ur­al had begun to seep into the heart of this world. I resist­ed the urge to glance over my shoul­der, unwill­ing to admit that my own pres­ence here felt as intru­sive as the blight Tam­lin had spo­ken of.

I kept mov­ing, mark­ing every turn, every change in the ter­rain, as if map­ping the estate in my mind would some­how grant me an advan­tage. The more I walked, the more I noticed the sub­tle shifts in the landscape—the per­fect­ly shaped hedges that seemed untouched by time, the stat­ues of crea­tures I didn’t rec­og­nize, carved from stone so life­like they looked ready to step for­ward at any moment. Some bore cracks, their sur­faces marred as though some­thing had tried to claw its way out from with­in.

A rustling sound came from beyond the near­est hedge, and my body tensed instinc­tive­ly. My hand moved to my belt, though I had no weapon to grasp—another reminder of my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in this world. I forced myself to keep walk­ing, keep­ing my pace steady, deter­mined not to let fear take hold. If there was some­thing watch­ing me, I would rather not give it the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing me fal­ter.

The river­bank was fur­ther than I had antic­i­pat­ed, and by the time I reached its edge, my breath was steady but my pulse had quick­ened. The water was clear, reveal­ing smooth stones beneath the sur­face, yet it moved unnat­u­ral­ly still, as if wait­ing for some­thing to dis­turb it. I crouched, dip­ping my fin­gers into the cool cur­rent, let­ting the sen­sa­tion ground me before my thoughts wan­dered too far into uncer­tain­ty.

The estate was far more than just a lav­ish home for a High Fae lord—it pulsed with mag­ic, secrets buried beneath its ele­gance, and dan­gers that lurked just beyond sight. What­ev­er Tam­lin had meant when he said the blight was beyond my com­pre­hen­sion, I had no doubt that his warn­ing had been gen­uine. But if he expect­ed me to stay with­in the walls of his manor, to ignore the mys­ter­ies unrav­el­ing around me, he would be sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed.

As I turned back toward the house, retrac­ing my steps through the wind­ing gar­dens, I knew one thing for certain—this place was not as serene as it seemed. If I want­ed to sur­vive here, I would need more than just cau­tion. I would need knowl­edge, and more impor­tant­ly, I would need to fig­ure out whether the dan­gers Tam­lin spoke of were tru­ly external—or if some of them resided with­in the very walls I had just left behind.