Jasper’s eyes widened. “If only we had known. So many years wasted when we could have been finding a way to release her from it, and I would already have an antidote to give you.”
“How could you have known? There is no visible sign, and it was only my reaction to the scratch that made me question if Lettie had a similar encounter.”
He brushed a stone thumb along the back of her hand. “If there is anything you desire, I would do everything in my power to fulfil your wish.”
Her parents stood in her mind’s eye, but she doubted his powers included resurrection. There was something else she desired, a yearning she felt every time the raven took flight from her garden in Whetstone and spread his wings. Since she was being brave and trusted him to hold her hand, she voiced her request. “I want to fly.”
He frowned and lines were chiselled furrows in his brow. “Fly?”
“Yes. Can you fly if you are holding me? Birds circle high above and can see gardens laid out below them in a way I can only imagine.” Admittedly it was a silly wish, but perhaps the antidote to a very serious conversation. He had sturdy-looking wings that held him aloft. Surely the addition of her weight was not too much to ask?
He stood and pulled her to him. With both hands flat on his chest, she marvelled at the warmth of the granite. She thought he would be rough and abrasive like hewn brick, but her hands glided over him as though the thinnest layer of silk covered the stone.
He swung her into his arms and Dawn wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Ready?” he asked. No matter the hideous outer layer, the grey gaze simmered with the Jasper she knew.
“I’ll be back, Mouse,” she said to the wolfhound. Then she managed a small smile before her courage abandoned her. “I’m ready.”
Dawn didn’t know if he jumped or if the ground simply fell away, but they shot upward.
She gasped and turned her head, but made sure her hands were locked around Jasper’s thick neck. Laid out below her and caressed in moonlight was the entire estate. Now she could see the spread of the blight. She had thought the hermitage might be the point of origin for Ava’s python vine that she created with the seed stolen from Jasper. But below she saw how it spiralled out from the maze.
Only one spot remained free and untouched.
The lake was a mirror, the sole bright spot that could not be extinguished.
24
Jasper landed by the water’s edge and tucked his massive wings out of the way. Then he eased Dawn’s feet to the ground. She leaned back against his granite chest and stared out over the water. Under the moon’s touch, the lake glowed silver and reflected the stars above. Why did the black vine surround the lake but not venture close to the water? There was something significant in that, which might help Dawn in her battle against Ava.
She let the tranquillity of the lake wash over her as her mind sorted through a myriad of things that drifted past. Foremost was her acceptance of Jasper’s words as true. That Ava had forced him to the assignations in the maze by using the threat of compelling Elijah. That she bound Jasper to make him complicit in spreading her vine over the estate.
If the other woman intended to drive Dawn from the estate, it had nearly worked. If not for the quiet request from Elijah that she consider the situation from all angles, then she may have fled. Dawn didn’t have the luxury of time to wallow in hurt feelings or to take weeks to consider his words and actions before extending forgiveness and understanding.
Her fingers scraped against Jasper’s stone arms. The Cor-vitis wriggled into life on her right hand, even while her left wrist darkened from Ava’s touch. Which would win? If Ava’s vine consumed her, would she become part of the blight that consumed the estate?
She turned in Jasper’s arms. With him in the much taller gargoyle form, her nose was barely mid chest level. At least she didn’t have to meet his serious face when she asked her next question. “If I take Ava’s place, will I become like her? Will I transform into a horrible tree creature who haunts the forested areas?”
Dawn distracted herself by running a hand along a granite forearm, fascinated by the difference between what her eyes saw and her fingertips felt. Cold rock was actually solid heat. He would be magnificent to curl up next to in winter when snow blanketed the landscape.
He flexed his arm, and it was like watching boulders shift under the ground. “No. Ava became what she always was: a selfish, evil thing. I wish you had known my mother, because then you would know a heart should be loving, caring, and nurturing. The heart also usually dwells in the house and sleeps in a bed, not under a hedge.”
Her mind leapt on a more suitable replacement for her twisted image of what the garden’s heart would become. Jasper and Lettie’s mother had founded this garden. She had planned the layout and nurtured everything it touched. It soothed Dawn’s concerns to know she could emulate one woman and not the other. “I cannot meet Serena, but I could continue her legacy.”
Her exploring hand continued up over a bicep, and then she stretched to reach his shoulder. She longed to follow the lines of his huge wings and wondered how he used the claws at each tip. They seemed to retract and extend like cat claws. “I do wonder if Paracelsus ever saw one of your kind that he named your element gnome. It seems more like a cruel jest.”
Jasper captured her roving hand and kissed her fingertips. It was a warm caress, like brushing against a fire brick. “Are you not scared by this countenance? I understand if you find me ugly to behold. It would only take a moment to shift back to my human form.”
“No, don’t change yet.” She lifted her arms to cup a chiselled face and stroke a stone cheek. “When I first saw you in the maze I was afraid. But as soon as you looked at me, I knew it was you. The exterior doesn’t matter, for it is the soul within that I see.”
She didn’t know yet if she could call the swelling in her heart love. A part of her baulked and argued it was too soon, that they needed a slow courtship of months, or even years, to come to such a realisation. Then another part of her trusted that a much larger force knew, even if she didn’t. Just as Mouse gave his whole being and affection in an instant, she could offer Jasper all that she was.
She held out her right hand and the tiny vine wriggled and squirmed as it tried to break free of her grasp. “If I accept the Cor-vitis bond, will it break Ava’s hold over you as Lord Warder?”
Jasper closed his much larger hand around hers, and a green tendril escaped between closed fingers. “No, as she still controls the sanctuary. But it would give me a refuge, a quiet place to be where she cannot reach me.”
Dawn’s mind raced ahead thinking like a general, marshalling troops and trying to surround an enemy. Although admittedly her foes were normally of the insect variety and her battle ground was a few square feet, not hundreds of acres. “It might still weaken her position though and make it easier for you to resist her call.”
Was there a chance that accepting the Cor-vitis bond might drive Ava’s invading vine from her body? It could be her cure, but how would they ever heal Lettie?
“Remember the link runs both ways. Us being bonded will also weaken my hold over her,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” What power did the Lord Warder have over the garden’s heart?
“Just as she can summon me, I have been able to contain her and she cannot escape the boundary of this estate. If I am free, so is she, and I do not know what she might do to the wider community.” He held his arms around her, holding her in a stone barrier.