Chapter 18: Garden of Ghosts
The Glass Garden wasn't on any map.
It didn't exist in castle records either—not even in the section Elaine bribed the royal librarian to unlock with cake and heartfelt pleading. (He now avoided her in the halls with the urgency of a man dodging a haunted teacup.)
But Lior had found something.
Buried in the back of a moth-eaten memoir written by a court mage with a flair for dramatic parentheses and long-winded footnotes was this riddle:
> To the seeker of what no longer blooms: follow the shadow of dawn to where the moon once wept, and there you'll find what was never planted—only remembered.
Cryptic? Absolutely.
Helpful? Shockingly.
At sunrise, Elaine and Lior followed the shifting colors of the east tower's broken stained glass. The light bent like a compass, illuminating an alcove that hadn't existed a moment before. Behind it, a sealed arch—threaded with magic so ancient, Elaine could feel it hum in her bones—opened to their touch.
The air shifted.
They descended a spiral staircase carved from dusk-colored stone, where every step echoed like a heartbeat waiting to be remembered.
And then—
Glass.
Not windows. Not panes.
The Garden was made of glass. Walls, paths, arched ceilings—every surface glimmered as if woven from memory itself. Crystal flora bloomed in suspended stillness. Iridescent trees shimmered with frost-like leaves. A silver pool mirrored not the sky above, but another one, filled with stars that pulsed like they remembered being real.
Elaine's breath caught.
"The Garden doesn't grow," she whispered. "It remembers."
She stepped onto the mirrored path, and beneath her feet, the reflection shifted—showing not her, but a younger version. Barefoot, laughing, holding someone's hand.
Lior hovered at her side, alert but silent.
"I've been here before," she said softly. "Not in this life. Another. One that never made it to the ending."
And then—
A voice.
"You came back."
A figure stepped out from behind a crystalline tree.
Young. Pale. Hair like raven's wings caught in the wind. Eyes the color of a gathering storm.
Elaine froze. "Caius?"
"No," Lior said, eyes narrowing. "That's not him."
The stranger offered a soft, sad smile. "But I was. Once. In a version where the world broke differently. Where the story ended before it could restart."
Elaine took a hesitant step forward. Her heartbeat whispered that she knew him, even if memory disagreed.
"You're a variant," she said. "A remnant from a timeline that was… pruned."
He nodded. "I was left behind. When the story rewrote itself, this garden—the place you once called home—remembered us. And it remembered me."
He glanced down at his hands, translucent at the edges. "I've existed here in fragments. Waiting. Hoping you might come back."
Elaine's chest tightened. "I don't remember you."
"I know," he said, voice soft. "But I remember you. I remember the girl who laughed like starlight, who named constellations after her favorite pastries. The girl who said—if anything ever went wrong—she'd find her way back to me through the garden that never bloomed."
Lior moved closer to Elaine, protective. "What do you want from her?"
The boy looked up. No threat in his gaze. Just longing.
"To give her a choice."
Elaine's brows drew together. "You're part of the Reversal Cult?"
He shook his head. "No. They came after. Fed on the pieces I left behind—my grief, my memories. But I broke away. I didn't want to fight. I just… wanted to see if something of me still lived in you."
Elaine stepped forward, drawn by something she couldn't name. "You loved me?"
His smile was fragile, like a glass petal. "With all the weight of a story that never got to finish."
Silence bloomed between them.
And then—Elaine whispered, "I'm sorry."
Because she saw it now: this wasn't an enemy. This was a leftover heartbeat from a life erased. A love she'd never gotten the chance to mourn.
Lior took her hand.
The boy—no, the echo—smiled. And this time, it wasn't grief. It was release.
"Then that's enough," he said. "Thank you… for remembering me, even if you don't remember how."
And like the fragile glass the garden was made from, he shattered into light. No pain. No scream. Just a soft sound—like a star exhaling.
Elaine stood still, heart full and aching.
Because not all love stories end in heartbreak.
Some end in memory.
And let others begin.