Two intertwined stories, told through the women who are learning to trust their own instincts — and the men who make that so hard to do.
Painter · Gallery Muse
A gifted painter who speaks in color when words fail her. Devoted to Nathan, unsettled by a recurring dream she can't shake, and drawn — against every instinct — to a man who looks at her like he already knows the answer.
Curator · The Sure Thing
Sophie's boyfriend of years — polished, ambitious, and effortlessly good at people. He built the gallery night that was supposed to be hers. He doesn't know about the card in her pocket.
The Stranger
He appears twice in one week and both times it feels like fate — or something engineered to feel that way. Certain, unhurried, and unnervingly well-informed about a woman he's only just met.
Best Friend · Owner, UNBOUND
Sophie's oldest friend and the sharp-eyed proprietor of UNBOUND bookstore. She notices everything Sophie pretends not to — and says so, bracelets clinking, without apology.
Freshman · Saint Elora University
New to SEU and still learning how to take up space. Hazel-eyed and quietly watchful, she's spent her life performing presence while practicing absence — until a professor's golden boy decides she's impossible to miss.
Golden Boy · Campus Royalty
Broad-shouldered, magnetic, and always the center of gravity in any room he enters. He collects attention the way other people collect friends — and he's decided Amaris is next.
Best Friend · Saint Elora University
Loud, magnetic, and impossible to say no to. Daya drags Amaris out of her shell and into every party worth remembering — and she's the first to see the warning signs Amaris would rather ignore.
Campus Royalty · Graham's Circle
Red-haired and razor-sharp, Serena has history with Graham and no intention of stepping quietly aside. Her smile never quite reaches her eyes when Amaris is in the room.
Continue reading on The Orchard →Light splinters in, not with ease, but with force. Blurred images, dried, foggy, push their way to the surface as my pupils constrict and enlarge, attempting to focus my surroundings. The first thing that I notice is the dirt.
“Easy,” he says, low, like he's talking me through something I should already understand. “Don't make this harder than it has to be.”
“Play dead until it's real,” he says, almost gently, like advice being passed down. “That's how you get through it.”
ADENIUM updates chapter by chapter on The Orchard. Pick up where the prologue left off below, or open the full posting in its own tab.
Two cities, two lives, one recurring dread — glimpses of the world Sophie and Amaris move through.
