The garden behind the Crescent Moon mansion was different at night.
Silver petals glowed in the dark, swaying with no wind. The sacred tree near the reflecting pool whispered in a language Jax couldn't quite understand, but Nyla did.
She walked barefoot across the stone path like she belonged there, as if she had known this place in dreams. She paused beneath the tree, touched its bark, and whispered something.
The leaves trembled, releasing a faint shimmer of light.
Jax watched her from a few steps away, arms crossed, heart pounding. His instincts were sharper around her, as if Murphy and his human self both were on high alert, not from danger, but from something vast and unknown. Something important.
"You're not afraid of the sacred tree," he said.
She smiled softly. "I think it remembers me."
"Have you been here before?" he asked.
"Not like this. But I've walked beside the Moon in places that don't exist here. Maybe I brushed against this place in a dream."
