But my work wasn’t done.

I transplanted it into my own heart. It wound itself around me like wisteria choking a young tree, tinging the world a little darker. I clenched my teeth against the weight of it. I wouldn’t have to endure it for long. I’d hand it over to the shadow garden as soon as I could.

I struggled to breathe.

I blinked—once, twice.

The world came back into focus.

I’d done it. All on my own.

“See?” I tried not to choke on the question, as if River’s crushing guilt was nothing to me.

River stared at me, eyes wide. A hand over his heart.

I was proud of the Baker family—the legacy they’d built, the shop that one day River would take over. Even more, I knew just how much his grandfather loved him. The look of pride in his eyes every time River walked through the grocery’s doors, the assuredness that River would carry on what his grandfather had built, yes, but also twenty-two years of love that even his grandfather’s death couldn’t erase.

I felt those feelings as if they were my own, my heart full to bursting.

“What did you do?” River asked. I’d expected to hear relief in his voice, maybe even gratitude. But rather than the tension draining from his shoulders, he sat rigid beside me. Bindweed sprouted in his aura, the small, trumpet-like flowers blooming all at once until oleander replaced them. Uncertainty turned to distrust.

My chest filled with ice as I realized the sense of pride and love I was feeling wasn’t my own.

It shouldn’t have been possible. A Haywood could take a person’s pain, nothing more, and that only when freely offered.

I grabbed his hand tighter and closed my eyes, searching his heart once more. My family didn’t remove a person’s suffering completely. Though we eased it, making the process of healing on your own more tolerable, always, some trace of those feelings remained. Surely these things I’d taken would grow back.

But there was nothing left in the hole I’d dug in River’s heart.

I tried to pull the feelings out of myself, to bury them back where I’d found them. But I couldn’t get my hands around them. Once another person’s pain entered a Haywood’s heart, the only place for it to go was the shadow garden.

What I’d taken from River was irreversible.

He’d never feel his grandfather’s love again.

This was the closest Addison had been to River since that night. She could see the golden flecks in his hazel eyes, almost trace the strong line of his nose, and smell the sharp scent of thyme that he always carried.

“I wish my sister had warned me you’d be here,” he said.