After Lucien left the greenhouse, the room seemed to relax only in appearance.
The warmth still clung to the glass walls. The vines still swayed faintly overhead. The wooden box remained open on the table, its contents spread between Evelyn and Cassian like pieces of a puzzle neither of them was ready to solve. Yet the moment the Alpha's footsteps disappeared beyond the greenhouse door, the atmosphere changed in a way Evelyn could almost feel in her bones.
Cassian stood for a moment in silence, staring at the folded pages as though they might begin speaking if he waited long enough.
Evelyn crossed her arms lightly and looked at him. "You seem even less happy now."
He gave her a side glance. "I'm thinking."
"That usually makes people look thoughtful, not annoyed."
"In my case, it is both."
She nearly smiled, though the tension in the room did not let her relax fully. The greenhouse now felt like a sealed pocket of warmth suspended inside a colder, stranger world. Outside the glass, winter waited quietly over the manor grounds. Inside, the hidden message from the old Luna sat between them like a lit flame.
Evelyn looked back at the papers. "We should read all of it."
Cassian nodded once and reached for the next page. The note had been folded several times, and the edges were worn soft with age. When he opened it, both of them leaned in.
The handwriting was elegant, careful, and unmistakably feminine. It was not written like a formal letter. It felt more personal, more urgent, as if the writer had known exactly who might one day find it and had wanted every word to land clearly.
Cassian read aloud in a low voice.
"If you are reading this, then either the manor is already under strain, or I have been gone for too long."
Evelyn felt a small chill pass through her.
Cassian turned the page.
"The greenhouse has always been the safest place to leave what cannot be spoken of in the halls. The staff trust flowers. Men trust silence. And children trust what is hidden beneath leaves."
He stopped briefly, his jaw tightening.
Evelyn looked at him. "That sounds like she knew this house very well."
"Yes."
He kept reading.
"I was told the ridge could be forgotten. I was told the old ground no longer mattered. That was a lie. The land remembers too much, and the old seals do not weaken quietly. If you are young enough to be reading this, then the wrong people have already begun asking the right questions."
Evelyn's gaze drifted to the red vial.
The old Luna had not been writing from the perspective of a grieving wife. She had been writing like someone trying to outlast a secret.
Cassian turned the page again.
Evelyn listened as he continued.
"If the vial remains warm, do not allow it to be opened by anyone who does not know what they are holding. It is not poison. It is not medicine. It is a residue left behind when a bloodline is separated from its source."
Cassian stopped.
Evelyn frowned. "Separated?"
He read the sentence again more slowly, as if the words themselves might rearrange into something easier to understand.
"A bloodline separated from its source," he repeated.
The greenhouse seemed even quieter now.
Evelyn stared at the vial. "That sounds very much like a curse."
Cassian's expression tightened. "Or a severed inheritance."
"Which is somehow worse."
He did not argue.
The pages continued, and Cassian turned them with increasing care as the old Luna's words grew more specific.
"She wrote down instructions," he said quietly. "Look."
He pointed to a section near the bottom of the third page, where a narrow list of items had been written in small script.
One dried silver herb.
One drop of moon water.
One cup from the first harvest.
And the name of the child who was meant to inherit it.
Evelyn's attention sharpened immediately. "The child?"
Cassian looked at her, then back at the page.
"The name is crossed out."
Evelyn stepped closer and saw it herself. The line had been deliberately scratched over, the ink obscured with several sharp slashes of pen. Someone had not wanted the child's name to remain visible.
She looked up slowly. "Your mother hid your inheritance."
Cassian went still.
It was a simple sentence, but the way it landed between them made the greenhouse feel suddenly much colder.
"I did not say that," he muttered.
"You did not have to."
His expression tightened, though not with anger. More with discomfort, as if he had stepped close to something he still did not know how to touch. Evelyn watched him carefully. For all his sharpness and irritation, he was unexpectedly transparent in moments like this. Not emotionally open, exactly. But easy to read once she knew where to look.
He looked at the crossed-out name again, then at the vial.
"Why would she hide it from me?"
Evelyn hesitated.
That was the sort of question no one could answer cleanly.
Maybe because he was too young. Maybe because the truth was dangerous. Maybe because she had loved him enough to leave only pieces, hoping he would only need them when the time came. Evelyn could imagine a hundred reasons, none of them comfortable.
Instead, she said softly, "Maybe because she wanted you to live long enough to receive it."
Cassian did not respond.
The silence lasted long enough that Evelyn almost regretted speaking at all. But then he reached for the next page, and the shape of his shoulders changed slightly as he read.
"This box was assembled in the second year after the northern ridge split the old wolves' territory from the sealed ground. Lucien knows enough to be careful. That is why I chose this place. The greenhouse is not watched as closely as the main halls, and the roots beneath it go deeper than the men who built this manor remember."
Evelyn slowly looked around the greenhouse.
The vines overhead. The potted herbs. The damp soil. The roots.
The old Luna had chosen this place for a reason.
Cassian continued.
"If the person who finds this is the boy, then you must know that you were never meant to be kept outside the truth forever. If the person who finds this is not the boy, then you are already too late to pretend the family is innocent."
Evelyn's mouth went dry.
Cassian set the page down slowly.
Neither of them spoke at first.
The greenhouse was suddenly too warm, the humid air pressing lightly against their skin, making everything feel more enclosed than before. Evelyn looked at the vial again, and this time she noticed that the red liquid inside seemed to have changed very slightly. Not in color. In movement. A faint pulse lingered near the surface, slow and almost breathing.
She frowned.
Cassian saw it too. "It moved again."
Evelyn nodded once. "It's reacting to something."
"To what?"
She did not answer immediately.
Her attention had drifted toward the roots beneath the greenhouse floor. That was ridiculous, of course. She knew it was ridiculous. Yet the old Luna's message kept returning to her, one line especially.
The roots beneath it go deeper than the men who built this manor remember.
The greenhouse sat over something.
Not just metaphorically. Literally, perhaps.
Evelyn looked at Cassian. "Do you think there's anything beneath the floor?"
He looked around the greenhouse slowly, as if he had not considered that possibility before. Then his expression hardened. "There could be."
Evelyn crouched near one of the planter beds and pressed her hand lightly against the stone edge. The floor was warm from the greenhouse heat, but beneath it she could feel a strange steadiness, a density that made the room feel older than it looked.
Cassian crouched beside her. "What are you doing?"
"Trying not to imagine your family hiding a tunnel under the flowers."
"That is an unreasonable thing to imagine."
"In this house?"
He did not answer.
Instead, he reached toward the edge of one of the wooden planting boxes and knocked lightly against the frame. The sound that came back was dull and deep, but not as hollow as she expected.
Then, from somewhere beneath the planter, a tiny metallic click sounded.
Both of them froze.
Evelyn's eyes widened. "Did you hear that?"
Cassian lowered his hand immediately. "Yes."
He looked down at the base of the planter where the wood met the stone floor. There, half-hidden by the shadow of the box, was a thin seam she had not noticed before.
A panel.
Evelyn's pulse jumped. "That's not part of the greenhouse floor."
"No."
He touched the seam carefully and found a small hidden latch concealed beneath the planter frame. The metal was old, but not rusted. It had clearly been maintained. Quietly. Secretly.
Evelyn stared at him. "Your family is full of lies."
Cassian looked up at her with a flat expression. "You're just noticing now?"
Despite herself, she let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
Then Cassian pressed the latch.
The wooden panel shifted.
Not much.
Only enough to reveal a narrow dark space beneath the planter bed.
Evelyn leaned closer, her breath catching as the smell reached her first.
Earth.
Cold, damp earth.
And underneath it, the faintest trace of something older.
Something preserved.
Cassian looked at her, his expression sharpened by sudden alertness. "There is something down there."
Evelyn stared at the opening.
A hidden space beneath the greenhouse.
A secret beneath the roots.
The old Luna had left the vial here. The letter had pointed them toward the greenhouse. The greenhouse itself had pointed beneath the floor.
Evelyn swallowed slowly.
"Cassian," she said, her voice lower now, "I think we're finally getting to the part your father did not want us to find."
He looked at the dark gap beneath the planter bed, then at the red vial on the table behind them, and finally back at her.
His expression was very still.
"Then let's see what my mother buried."