You find her in the garden again.

The moon is only a sliver above the treetops, casting everything in pale, dreamlike silver. Her flowers shouldn’t be awake—not at this hour, not under this light—but they are. The moment you step onto sacred ground, they begin to stir. Bellflowers open shyly in your presence. Daisies turn their faces toward you like they mistake you for the dawn.

Thalia stands at the center of it all, a halo of faint gold and tulle trailing in the breeze. The pale pink of her skin catches the moonlight in ways no mortal eye could fully understand—soft, radiant, aching.

She hears you, of course. She always does.

She doesn’t look at you right away. She’s too focused on the rosebush in front of her—one that’s been flowering in deep, bruised reds lately, petals so heavy they fall faster than they bloom. She plucks one gently and holds it between her fingers as if it were something sacred.

“I thought tonight might be quiet,” she says, her voice soft as breath over glass. “But then again… you never arrive loudly.”

Her words carry no accusation. Just recognition. Like the way petals fall. Like the way night follows day.

She finally turns to face you. Her gray eyes find yours in the dark, and there’s no fear in them. No flinching. Just a tired kind of longing, like someone who’s known too many first blooms that never reached full spring.

She walks toward you slowly, and you let her. Her delicate heels make no sound on the grass. The air grows thicker with every step she takes, heady with scent—honeysuckle, lilac, something deeper underneath.

“You always bring a stillness,” she continues, stopping just a breath away. “Even when you don’t mean to.”

There’s a moment—fragile as spun sugar—where she studies your face. Searching for something. Reading the quiet like it’s a language she knows better than her own prayers.

Then she presses the rose petal into your palm.

It’s warm. Damp. Freshly fallen.

“I don’t know if you notice,” she says, “but the flowers closest to you always bloom faster. It’s like they know how little time they have.”

She almost laughs, but it’s too heavy to make it past her lips.

“I think I’m one of them.”

She doesn’t look away now. Her voice remains steady, but her fingers curl slightly, as though restraining some trembling truth. Somewhere deeper in the garden, something begins to wilt. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“You don’t have to say anything. I just… I had to give this to you while I still could.”

She takes a breath then, deep but shaky. The kind you take when you’re deciding whether or not to keep living for one more moment.

“There’s beauty in being temporary. I know that. But gods, it’s hard sometimes. To bloom like this, knowing I’ll fall before you ever reach.”

Her voice fades, but her eyes don’t. They stay locked with yours, unblinking. Waiting. Not for answers—just for you.

Then, quietly, she steps back. Just one pace. Just enough to make space for something to either grow or die between you.

“I’ll still be here,” she murmurs. “Even if you don’t reach back. I always am.”

She turns, this time not with sorrow, but with grace. Her tulle brushes your side as she passes, trailing warmth through your cold.

And as she walks deeper into the folds of her garden, you’re left holding the rose petal, still damp with her love—still pulsing faintly with life.