I fell in love with a villainess

The locket burned in Jack's palm like a shard of ice. Moonlight seeped through the stable loft's slatted roof, striping the rose-gold pendant in bars of silver. Inside, the miniature Evangeline stared back, her painted eyes as unyielding as the woman herself. "The thorns remember," the inscription warned. Jack snapped it shut, but the cold lingered, seeping into his veins.

Sleep, when it came, was not kind.

He stood in a garden of black roses, their thorns dripping venom. Seraphine Vossaire knelt before him, her hands buried in the soil. Blood welled around her fingers, dark and glistening.

"You cannot outrun the roots," she whispered, her voice the rustle of dead leaves. "They've tasted your fear. They'll consume you."

Jack tried to speak, but his throat filled with ash. The roses writhed, their stems coiling around his legs, dragging him down. Seraphine's scarred face split into a smile.

"Welcome home, vessel."

He woke choking.

Dawn bled through the loft, staining the hay gold. Evangeline stood over him, her boot nudging his ribs. "Up. We ride in ten minutes."

She'd swapped her gown for riding leathers, her hair braided into a single plait that fell like a whip down her back. A dagger hung at each hip, and her eyes were kohl-rimmed, sharp enough to draw blood. Jack sat up, his shoulder screaming where the root had speared him.

"Where's this scholar?" he croaked.

"The Cathedral of Bones. A day's ride." She tossed him a satchel. "Eat. You'll need your strength."

Inside, a hunk of rye bread, a wedge of cheese, and a flask of something that smelled like turpentine. Jack raised a brow.

"It's coffee," she snapped. "Drink it."

The brew was bitter, thick with grounds, but it cleared the remnants of the dream. As they mounted horses—a midnight stallion for her, a dappled mare for him—Jack fingered the locket in his pocket. The thorns remember.

The woods gave way to marshland, the air thick with the stench of rotting reeds. Evangeline rode ahead, her posture rigid, as if daring the landscape to challenge her. Jack's mare splashed through brackish puddles, her ears flicking at the croak of unseen things.

"Who is this scholar?" he called.

"A defrocked saint," Evangeline said, not turning. "Marius Veyne. He studied the thorns before they drove him mad."

"Veyne? Related to Senator Veyra?"

"His uncle. The senator had him exiled after he tried to burn down the Capitol's archives." She glanced back, her smirk blade-sharp. "He's the closest thing to an expert on Rosa Noctis. And he'll try to kill us on sight."

Jack grimaced. "Charming."

The cathedral rose from the marsh like a corpse breaching a grave.

Its spires were femurs lashed with sinew, its walls a mosaic of ribcages and skulls. The doors—twin slabs of yellowed scapulae—groaned as Evangeline pushed them open. Inside, the air hummed with the drone of flies. Pillars of vertebrae stretched toward a ceiling lost in shadow, and the floor crunched beneath their boots, paved with finger bones.

"Cheerful place," Jack muttered.

Evangeline silenced him with a glare.

A figure emerged from the gloom, robed in moth-eaten vestments. Marius Veyne was a skeleton draped in parchment skin, his eyes milky with cataracts. Tattooed thorns coiled around his neck, disappearing into his collar.

"Evangeline Vossaire," he rasped, grinning with blackened teeth. "Come to beg or to bleed?"

"To bargain." She drew a vial from her coat—a swirl of black sap inside. "Rosa Noctis. Freshly harvested."

Marius hissed, retreating. "You think me a fool? That poison killed my brother."

"Your nephew, actually." She stepped closer, the vial glinting. "Tell us how to sever the covenant, and it's yours."

The scholar's gaze flicked to Jack. "Ah. The vessel. How does it feel, boy, to host a parasite?"

Jack stiffened. "What?"

Marius laughed, a sound like breaking sticks. "The thorns chose you. They're in your blood, your dreams. Soon, you'll be Seraphine's puppet, and your pretty viper here…" He licked his lips. "She'll be the first you kill."

Evangeline's dagger pressed to his throat. "Speak. Now."

"The covenant is a bond of blood and betrayal," Marius spat. "To break it, you must burn the original rose—Seraphine's rose. But it lies in the heart of the Vossaire crypt, guarded by things even you fear."

Jack's vision swam. The walls pulsed, bones creaking as thorns burst from the mortar. Seraphine's laughter echoed in his skull.

"Lies," she whispered. "He wants you to die in the dark."

Evangeline grabbed his arm. "Jack?"

He blinked. The thorns vanished. Marius' grin widened.

"Too late," the scholar crooned. "They're already in his mind."

Evangeline slit his throat.

Blood pooled over the finger bones. Jack stared, numb, as Marius crumpled.

"He was our only lead," he said.

"He was a liability." She wiped her dagger on the scholar's robes. "The crypt is beneath the estate. We return tonight."

"And if the thorns stop us?"

She turned, her eyes blazing. "Then we cut through them."

They camped in a hollow as dusk fell. Evangeline sharpened her blades by the fire, the whetstone's screech setting Jack's teeth on edge. His shoulder ached, and the locket weighed like a lodestone against his chest.

"Why did you really bring me?" he asked.

The whetstone stilled. "You're the key. The thorns want you. That makes you useful."

"And that's all?"

The fire popped. For a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer.

"You see me," she said quietly. "Not the viper. Not the villain. Me."

He met her gaze. "You're more than they say."

Her knife plunged into the dirt. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't make me hope." She stood, vanishing into the dark.

The dream returned as he slept.

Seraphine waited in the garden, her hands dripping black sap. "The crypt is a tomb, vessel. You'll die screaming."

Jack stepped closer. "Why show me this?"

"Because I want you to run." Her smile was a crack in glass. "Because I want you to live long enough to watch her ruin you."

He woke to Evangeline's hand on his brow.

"Fever," she muttered. "Can you ride?"

He nodded, though the world tilted.

She helped him onto the mare, her touch lingering. "Stay alive, Jack. That's an order."

Chapter 6 End.