Page 28 of Evergreen Academy (Society of Magical Botanists #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

C allan approached the table where I was eating dinner with Yasmin, Aurielle, and Coral that evening, seeming to appear out of nowhere. I felt my friends still, and the usually noisy table fell quiet.

“Ready?” Callan asked me.

“Sure. Just let me grab some more tea.”

Callan nodded and moved away from the table, headed toward the central vein.

“What in the name of sweet rose petals was that about?” Coral asked in a loud whisper. All three girls leaned toward me, as if they were flowers and I had a floral affinity.

“Callan is going to be… tutoring me.” It felt strange to say the words.

Simultaneously, all of my friends’ eyebrows shot toward their hairlines.

“Seriously? I didn’t know he tutored,” Yasmin mused.

“I’m not sure that it’s a usual thing for him. ”

Coral whistled. “Well, well, well. The mystery of the world’s sexiest founder’s descendent thickens.”

I rolled my eyes but smiled. “I better get going. See you all tomorrow.” I refilled my mug with steaming periwinkle tea then found Callan waiting in the central vein.

“Library?” I asked, ready to head for the stairs.

But Callan nodded toward the door leading to the woods. “I have somewhere else in mind.”

A few minutes later, we were in an empty tree house. Lanterns lit the space as the sun was rapidly setting. It was enchanting to be inside this environment that somehow seemed to have been built in conjunction with the trees.

“I thought the library might have too many prying eyes,” Callan explained as I examined the space.

“Prying eyes?” What was Callan worried about? It was just tutoring, wasn’t it?

“Some of the students here seem to have an… intense interest in me.”

“Because of the whole founder’s descendant thing?” The question slipped out before I could contemplate whether to bring it up.

“You heard about that.” It was a statement rather than a question. He sat back and ran a hand through his dark hair. The tree tattoos on his forearms glimmered in the lantern light. Was he… shy about his magical lineage?

“Oh yeah. Apparently, you and the other two founders’ descendants are much more powerful than all of us lowly botanical serfs.”

Callan huffed out a laugh. “I wouldn’t put it that way. But yeah, we have some advantages. ”

“And at solstice…” I began tentatively, thinking of the winter holiday that was fast approaching. “The three of you will recharge the school’s verdant shield? What are we defending the school from, exactly?” I thought of his words as he’d walked me to the car after the garden party on Friday night.

He shrugged. “Lots of things. The elements are a big one. You haven’t seen the academy in winter yet, but the plants will continue to thrive even when it’s cold and snowy.” He flipped his pencil through his fingers and continued.

“We have some protection from natural disasters as well. Wildfires and floods. And then there are the bits of our magic that keep non-magical people from seeing what’s behind our walls. If they ever climb or peer over, they just see some nondescript cottage-like buildings.”

Our eyes met, and I knew we were both thinking of the same moment—when I’d been snooping around the academy grounds with my friends.

I tried to hide the flush that I felt creeping up my neck.

I was so close to asking him about that night—I wanted to know why he’d been there alone outside of the gates in the middle of the night—but I chickened out at the last second.

He’d kept quiet about it to Professor East, as far as I knew, and I didn’t want to give him a reason to change tactics now.

“Can you tell me how recharging the school’s verdant shield works? Are you transferring some of your own magic? Pulling it in from elsewhere? Yasmin mentioned something to do with the soil.”

Callan’s eyes were still pinned to mine, as if he knew I’d changed my line of questioning slightly. “Are you trying to distract me from the fact that we have a stack of homework to work through?”

I sighed. So he was going to keep things close to the chest. “Polynomial equations are going to be the death of me.”

Callan chuckled at my side, and I bit back a smile as I began to work.