She glanced up at him. With her own emotions on overdrive, it was impossible not to pick up on his. Fear, curiosity, doubt. But beneath it all, there was hope.

She rested her palm on the ground and took a deep breath. “I need your help.”

Sunflowers tilted their heavy heads toward her, their stalks bending in an arc. Black hollyhock blossoms curved around their stems until all the bell-shaped flowers faced her. When she shoved her hands beneath the earth, the roots met her eagerly. They wrapped themselves around her fingers and her wrists, crawled up her forearms.

Something pulsed beneath the surface, like the garden itself was suffering.

She felt along tendrils that turned into taproots that led into stalks and stems and leaves in search of River’s pain, and everything she’d taken along with it.

“It has to be here,” she murmured. “Come on, show me…”

Addison closed her eyes and remembered that night beneath the snow and ash, the rush as River’s joy had filled her, as she felt his grandfather’s love as if it were her own—full and strong and true. The pure adrenaline of it before she realized what she’d done. The things she’d taken. The plants guided her, their energy an outstretched hand in the dark until she found that familiar ache that was all River.

“It’s here,” she whispered.

“You found it?” River rested a hand on her back.

Addison glanced up at him. The wonder in his eyes took her breath away.

“Please,” she whispered to the garden.

A vine snaked its way across the earth in front of them. It rose up from the ground, facing her, and as it did, the plants around them edged closer.

“Give it to me,” she said.

The garden shifted. Roots pushed against her fingertips. Those that had snaked around her hands tightened their grip, as if searching for the sorrow she didn’t have to offer. The shoots closed in around her and River, like a cocoon of shadow in the night.

But the garden listened.

At the tip of the vine, a bud formed, bloomed, and fell. A blackberry ripened on the stem. Addison reached for River’s hand, and to her surprise, he let her take it, let her guide it to the berry. The plant released the fruit into his palm.

“What now?” River asked as he looked up at her.

“Now,” Addison said, “you eat it.”

Chapter 32

Addison

Darkness enclosed them. Sunflowers looked down on them from above, only just letting the moonlight through as more buds burst into blooms along their long, black stalks. Addison had known the shadow garden all her life. She’d thought she’d seen all the plants had to offer, but over the past couple of weeks they’d been surprising her at every turn. The vines around her forearms crawled higher, up her shoulders, toward her face, desperation in their gentle movements.