The roots were never at rest.They grew in the hour following the tower's self-righting. Not with nature's plodding patience, but with the supernatural's ravenous, infectious speed. Thick vines sprang from the base of Harrington Tower, which was now a hideous combination of damp, throbbing rhizome and black steel. Instead of being the green of life, they were the blood-red and black of the rose that gave birth to them, adorned with railroad-spike-sized thorns.They swept across the National Mall, splintering the tarmac and encircling the branches of cherry trees that broke and perished when touched. The Washington Monument, a black lattice set against white marble, was climbed. Thorns scraped against stone faces as they twisted around the columns of the Lincoln Memorial. The center of Washington, D.C., was surrounded by a cage of living briar by daylight, with millions of tightly closed black rosebuds scattered throughout. The perfume of Benjamin's endless garden, which was both overp

The thorn-cage was a living thing. The sharp spikes gleamed in the odd, vinestrained light as it breathed, a gradual, repetitive contraction and expansion. Not only had it imprisoned Alexander, but it had also offered him a prize in a macabre fantasy diorama. And inside was Mira-17, who was both his jailer and his declared bride.Alexander pushed himself as far away from the chaise as the tiny cage would allow. Using his sleeve to wipe his mouth, he tried to get rid of the sensation of her lips as well as the taste of decay and roses. The small child who depicted him as a ghost daddy and this seductive, dangerous woman who claimed to be his destiny were two contradictory realities that his mind struggled to maintain.He spoke out, "You are sick," his voice shaking with a fury he was unable to physically express due to the radiation weakness. "Your mind has been poisoned by the garden."Pacing the cramped space like a panther, Mira-17 clarified, "It cleared the poison." A clear channel

It was no easy rest for the Crowns of Dust. The teens' brows appeared to be burdened by them, a physical reminder of the somber heritage they now professed. The crowns brought about a noticeable change. Mira's bewilderment turned into a chilly determination. The rage in Phoenix's eyes became calculated. The emptiness in Ash's gaze grew more profound and absolute.They were no longer bewildered kids in grown-up bodies. They were a council. A trio that rules the Thorn Garden.Together, they focused on Alexander, the "obsolete" monarch. His demeanor was steely, but he had forced himself to stand, wobbling. No matter what poison ran in their veins, his own boys would not cast him aside.With a deep rasp that overpowered the vine hum, he asked, "You think crowns make you kings?" "A monarch defends his subjects. They are not fed to the earth by him.Phoenix snarled, the thorn-crown glinting, "Sentiment." "The people are the soil. Everything about them, their suffering, their love, even thei

The island turned into a survival-themed nursery.The babies were real. They slept in fits and turns, soiled their improvised linen swaddle, and were hungry. Tatiana and Alexander were pulled away from the precipice of despair by their unrelenting demands, which were cruelly, gloriously, ordinary. No energy to plan a counterattack, no time to lament the teenage tyrants in the tower. All they could find was milk, a place to hide, and small bodies to stay warm.Despite being worn out and disfigured, Tatiana's body managed to produce milk. It seemed to be her last magical act, a physical uprising against the sterile degeneration of the garden. In the lee of the rudimentary lean-to, she nursed the twins one after the other, her phoenix scar acting as a quiet sentinel. With a whirlwind of emotions in his eyes, including amazement, guilt, and a furious, reignited protectiveness, Alexander gazed.He shifted his attention to the outside world, directing all of his strategic brilliance and dor

There was no sense of love in the kiss. Biting into a live wire composed of memories was the sensation.Tatiana felt a violent, multicolored burst of raw temporal energy. It wasn't a single vision, but rather a simultaneous explosion of all the times her lips had ever touched Alexander's, including the frigid crypt reunion, the poisoned gala farewell, the frantic collision in the warehouse, and the tender, mortal kiss in the cabin before it burnt. It was as though her soul was being photocopied at the speed of light as they played out in a shrieking second, a crescendo of intimacy.The device remained operational.It burst forth.There was a cry of tortured physics as the concentric silver rings spun. A hole in reality that drained the color from the bunker, leaving everything in shades of bleeding gray, the pearlescent core blazed, not with light, but with a terrible, negative brilliance. The sound of the air cracking was like a continent being ripped apart by a glacier. Between the