Thyme, Treason, and Thorns

A locked lighthouse. A stolen past. A betrayal steeped in thyme.Nora Alden is still recovering from the last ley line battle—her burned palm, her missing memory, and the fragile new trust she's building with Detective Liam Croft. But when Eleanor's iron box signals a distress pulse from the Cutler's Point lighthouse, Nora can't ignore it. Someone is harvesting memories and destabilizing the coastal network, and the trail leads straight to a rival Anchor who believes rewriting history is worth any cost.Trapped by an autumn storm in an isolated village, Nora must solve a cold-case murder using only her botanical gift, crumbling archival records, and Liam's procedural expertise. But every plant she reads drains more of her own past, threatening to erase Liam from her mind entirely. The killer has weaponized grief itself, and his reverse-anchoring ritual will devour the community's collective memory unless Nora finds the courage to do what her grandmother could not: dismantle the sacrificial system forever—even if the memories already stolen can never be returned.