Note: Majority of this chapter is a flashback of Esme's past. You can skip to the next chapter if you want, but I recommend reading it.
The garden always smelled like rain—even when it hadn't rained in days.
It was early spring. The air was cool, damp. The sun hadn't fully committed to the sky yet, and everything was silver with morning.
Esme knelt in the soil, bare hands dirty to the wrist, hair falling out of its braid. She was sixteen. Still growing into her cheekbones. Still learning how to hold a trowel like a scalpel.
Beside her, Helena moved like smoke. Quiet, unhurried, elegant in the way only dangerous things could be. She wore a soft gray sweater, faded jeans, and gloves the color of old paper. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows. Her arms were marked with faint scars.
Not from accidents.
From work.
Helena never told Esme everything.
She let her find things out. Let her unearth them.
Today, the lesson was about fire.
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"Put that one in the east bed," Helena said gently, handing her a bulb the size of a clenched fist. "It doesn't like to be near competition."
"What is it?" Esme asked, holding it delicately.
"Lilium pyrophila. Fire lily."
Esme blinked. "Is it dangerous?"
Helena smiled. "Not directly. But it remembers."
"Remembers what?"
"Being burned."
She didn't elaborate.
Esme placed the bulb in the earth, fingers pressing it into the soil like a secret. "Do flowers have memory?"
"Not in the way people do. But they remember trauma through resilience." Helena straightened, her hands dusted with dirt. "They learn how to live differently after surviving."
"Like people," Esme murmured.
Helena nodded. "Exactly like people."
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They worked in silence for a while, the rustle of leaves and hum of bees filling the gaps. Esme watched her mother move—how precise she was. How everything she touched seemed to bloom under her hands, or wilt on command.
There was a grace to it. And something darker.
The garden wasn't just beauty.
It was intention.
Esme reached for another pot but paused.
"Is this poison?" she asked, lifting a stem with soft purple blooms.
Helena glanced over. "Yes. Monkshood. Don't handle it if you've got any cuts."
Esme didn't drop it.
She turned it gently in her hand.
"What would happen if someone drank it?" she asked.
Helena didn't flinch.
"Cardiac arrest. Painful. Fast."
"Do you ever use it?"
Helena looked at her daughter for a long moment. "What do you mean by 'use'?"
Esme's fingers tensed around the stem.
"I mean—do you keep it for show, or do you... use it?"
Helena didn't answer right away.
Instead, she walked to the far edge of the greenhouse and opened a drawer built into the old cedar table. She returned with a leather notebook, thin and worn, its pages yellowing at the edges.
She handed it to Esme.
"Read page thirty-two."
Esme sat on the ground, opened the book, and found the page.
There, in her mother's slanted handwriting:
Some poisons are made for death.
Some are made for delay.
And some are made to remind people that you remember what they did.
Never kill for noise. Kill for silence.
Esme looked up slowly. Her voice was quieter now.
"Have you ever killed someone?"
Helena's face didn't change.
She crouched beside her daughter, took Esme's hand in both of hers—dirty, calloused, warm.
And said, "I've kept the world safer than it wants to admit."
Esme's throat went dry.
Helena added, "One day, you'll understand. Not because I'll make you. But because the world will."
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That night, Esme sat at the kitchen table long after dinner. She was still holding the notebook.
Helena moved around the kitchen, humming something soft. Not a song Esme knew—something old, foreign.
"Do you want to know why I taught you all this?" Helena asked suddenly, not looking at her.
Esme blinked. "Because you're tired?"
"No." Helena turned, her eyes sharp. "Because one day, the people I couldn't reach will come for you instead."
The words hit like a slap.
Esme's breath stilled. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying some fires don't burn themselves out. Someone has to carry water. Or a match."
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The next week, the garden caught fire.
They never found out how.
It started in the southeast quadrant—quick, furious. By the time the firefighters arrived, half the greenhouse was gone.
Esme stood on the lawn, barefoot, watching her mother hold a fire hose with her teeth clenched, aiming it at a blaze that devoured a decade of work.
The next morning, Helena walked the ash with Esme and pointed to a single flower that had survived.
Lilium pyrophila.
The fire lily.
Its petals blackened, but still upright.
"Some flowers survive fire," Helena whispered.
Then added, "And some become it."
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Years Later — Now
Esme sat on the greenhouse floor, the same notebook in her lap.
The fire lily was still alive. The same bulb, now blooming again after another cold season.
She watched its slow sway in the breeze from the cracked window.
And thought about the names she hadn't crossed off yet.
About Liam.
About the way he'd said her name on the phone.
"I keep dreaming of flowers."
She wondered if he knew yet what that meant.
If the fire had reached him.
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Across town, Liam sat in front of his open case files.
A copy of Helena's notebook was spread beside him. He didn't remember taking it. Didn't remember unlocking the sealed evidence drawer.
But here it was.
Page thirty-two marked with a pressed violet.
He read the words again.
Never kill for noise. Kill for silence.
He stared at it until the letters blurred.
Then his phone buzzed.
Unknown Number:
Some flowers don't bloom for light. They bloom for vengeance.
Attached was a photo.
Esme in the greenhouse.
Taken from outside.
Taken today.
Liam stood.
No coat.
No badge.
Just a name in his mouth like a warning.
"Esme."