Page 52 of Evergreen Academy (Society of Magical Botanists #1)

Chapter Fifty

T he first week of March brought Evergreen Academy’s annual Capture the Roses game. I’d been anticipating the game ever since hearing about it and hoped I would get at least Yasmin, Coral, or Aurielle on my team.

When the day of the event arrived, we all gathered in and around the front gardens.

Professor Tenella lifted her hands and magically clipped two enormous red roses from their bushes.

She dropped them into two large jars, where they appeared to float in midair, petals outstretched in every direction.

“Welcome to our annual Capture the Roses competition. The area in play includes the entire academy grounds, outside only. No hiding your roses in the academy building itself. You will work with your team members to devise a plan to try to retrieve the other team’s rose while protecting your own.

All powers are allowed, but any that will result in an injury above basic bruises or scrapes are not permitted.

Instructors will be monitoring and will remove botanists from the game if they are using affinities to injure others.

We trust that you all will be more creative than that.

As a reminder, the winners get easy entry to the vernal equinox celebration. ”

Excitement thrummed through the crowd of gathered students like bees flitting through the flower gardens.

“Now, for your teams.” She began to call out names into Xylem and Phloem teams, and the group began to sort itself into two sides.

Yasmin was called to Team Xylem and Coral to Team Phloem.

I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I’d have at least one of them on my team. Aurielle was added to Yasmin’s team.

“Callan Rhodes.” I looked up at the sound of his name.

“Team Phloem.” I heard a few groans from Team Xylem.

Eli Quinn had been sorted into Team Phloem a few moments earlier.

But then Professor Tenella announced that Nevah was on Team Xylem, and there were loud cheers from that side that they had snagged one of the three founders’ descendants.

With a last name starting with W , I was one of the last students called. Finally, Professor Tenella read my name, and I stood up straight.

“Briar Whelan… Team Phloem!” A few people high-fived me, and then I locked eyes with Coral and grinned as she moved to link her arm with mine.

“Thank spores you’re on my team. I was worried you, Yas, and Aurielle were going to have all the fun without me.”

“Circle up,” Eli Quinn called, and suddenly we were all business. Team Xylem was dispersing into the woods, presumably to do its huddle out of earshot.

“We’re going to break up into offensive and defensive teams. Defensive teams protect our rose at all costs.

The offense goes for the other team’s rose.

If you have a preference, sort yourselves.

Everyone else, stay here, and Rhodes and I will sort.

” I raised my eyebrows a little at Callan’s name, realizing I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Of course, he and Eli were the unofficial team captains.

A handful of students split into offensive and defensive groups, but Coral and I remained in the middle with the others. Eli and Callan walked around the middle group, asking each person for their affinity powers and sorting them. When they reached Coral, she said, “Fern girly here.”

“Defensive. Ferns are notoriously good at hiding things,” Eli said, and Callan nodded. Coral wiggled her eyebrows at me and walked to the defensive team. “Where to put you?” Eli inclined his head toward me.

“Whelan’s with me,” Callan’s decisive answer sent a pleasant jolt through me.

Eli nodded then said, “Defensive team, with me. Offense, with Rhodes.”

Callan gave me a curt nod then shifted his attention to the group on our right. I glanced back at Coral, who gave me a wave of farewell as she disappeared into the forest.

“We’re on offense, which means if we can’t detect and capture their rose, we lose,” Callan said, raising his voice so that everyone in the vicinity could hear.

“No pressure,” a fellow first-year murmured from my side.

“As you can imagine, Eli Quinn isn’t too keen on losing his last Capture the Roses game at Evergreen Academy, and I’m sure none of you are either. Let’s hear your plans.”

Callan allowed various individuals to share their ideas, nodding and asking direct follow-up questions. I got a glimpse of how sharp his strategic mind was, how he took a proposal and examined it from angles I hadn’t even considered.

Finally, he turned to me. “And what’s your strategy, Whelan?” I tried to suppress a smile at his use of my last name, assuming it was part of his team captain persona. Why did I enjoy every side that I saw of him?

“Well,” I began slowly, “we can’t win if we can’t locate their rose. All the tree roots are interconnected across the grounds. Would the trees be able to communicate the location to us? Once we have that, we could put together a plan of attack.”

A faint smile graced Callan’s lips. “That’s the best detection suggestion I’ve heard so far. Tree affinities, gather up.”

I opened my senses as we gathered, reaching out to neighboring trees. Like me, most of the tree affinities used a few common Floracantus for communication, asking the trees to seek out the location of the rose and pass it back to us through their network of roots.

Callan used a complicated Floracantus that I couldn’t understand, something to do with chemical secretions in the soil.

We waited a few moments, and then a shiver passed over me as, with a jolt of excitement, I sensed it. A tugging toward the eastern border of the campus. All of us with tree affinities turned our heads in that direction.

“It’s over there?” one of the students with a lead aquatic affinity asked us.

“Seems like it. We can’t pinpoint the exact location because they’re shielding it with something, but that’s enough to get us started. What do we know about the eastern edge of campus?” Callan prompted .

“A river runs through it,” the same girl said again, rubbing her hands in anticipation.

“Exactly. Aquatics, you’re gonna be the heavy hitters for this one.”

Together, our group devised a plan, and we began to make our way through the forest. Those of us with tree affinities walked in the canopy of the trees, while the others moved on the ground below.

Callan had recommended splitting like this in case any of us were caught.

Those with lead grasses affinities used their powers to silence the ground so that the earth was eerily quiet as they walked below.

I followed Callan through the trees, walking along the path made of tree limbs as naturally as strolling through the park, though my heart was beating rapidly in anticipation of going on offense against Team Xylem.

As we approached the eastern side of campus, a strong wind kicked up.

“The harvesters must be creating a storm,” Callan whispered.

Around us in the trees and down below, most of the students’ hair was beginning to whip around wildly.

Callan’s, an aquatic affinity student’s, and mine stayed perfectly calm.

Our lead harvesters had stayed behind to perform defense with Eli Quinn.

“I can’t take another step,” one of our teammates on the ground whisper yelled.

Callan’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at me then at the ground. We climbed down, and he spoke to the aquatic girl who, like us, wasn’t struggling against the prevailing winds. “Moira, I think it’s going to have to be the three of us who go.” She nodded, seeming to understand the logic.

One of the second years with a lead grasses affinity said, “ We’ll act as decoys here and move in from a different vantage point if we get an opening. Good luck.”

I followed Callan and Moira as we crept through the forest and knelt at the edge of a stream, staying out of sight as the wind ripped around us. Callan surveyed the area like a hawk assessing his prey, shrewd and calculating.

“The rose is there.” He nodded toward a tree house about fifty feet up the river.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Can you sense it?” he asked me, and I reached down deep within myself, blocking out all the commotion around me to focus on the image of the rose Professor Tenella had clipped and encapsulated at the beginning of the game.

There was a strong tugging in my center toward the tree house, much stronger than when we’d been on the other side of the forest. I nodded.

“There’s guaranteed to be booby traps all around it. Defensive plants, if they have any, but also possibly some florals and tree affinities. That’s what I’d do. We’ll have to get to it from the water.” He looked at Moira, who nodded.

“How do you two feel about swimming?” Moira asked.

I’d done a little aquatic plant studying with Nevah and no swimming at all, but I’d always been a strong swimmer, and this was just a small creek. I nodded that I was in, and Callan did the same.

“It looks like we can hold our breath the whole way. I’ll have those American lotuses provide cover.”

“What if the other team has people in the water?”

Moira grinned. “Then we show them who’s boss. ”

We slipped into the stream, and the sensation was unlike any I’d ever felt.

Unlike the previous occasions when I’d gone swimming, when I got in the water, I didn’t feel wet.

Similarly to how the storm flowed right around me, the water seemed to glide past me as if my entire body were a wet suit.

Moira took the lead, and Callan signaled for me to follow her. He brought up the rear.

We moved quietly through the river for a few minutes and were nearly to the tree house when Moira began to thrash in front of us. We stuck our heads out of the water, still hidden by the leafy lotus plants.

I noticed with horror that vines were wrapped around Moira’s wrists. With a flick and a whisper, she threw one of them off. A vine snaked toward me from another direction, and I stifled a scream as I scrambled toward the bank.

“You two go,” Moira said. “I’ll hold them off!”

“Are you sure?” I asked, panting as adrenaline coursed through me. Moira nodded, and suddenly Callan was there, pulling me the rest of the way out of the water.

“We can’t just leave Moira!” I gasped.

“She’ll be fine. I’ve seen her skills. It’s up to us now.

Nevah could be around here somewhere, if she isn’t on offense,” he whispered, and a chill of nerves crashed over me again.

Nevah was a formidable opponent, and as a second-year founders’ descendant, she was eons ahead of my capabilities.

If it came to a fight among the three of us, I wasn’t sure who I favored to win.

“I need you on full focus now, local. Tap in.”

Without thinking, I reached for his hand and instantly felt more grounded. I opened myself up, letting my senses be overwhelmed with the abundant plant life around us. I knew what we needed to do.

“We can climb the tree here then slide into the tree house. Nevah doesn’t have a tree affinity. We’ll have the advantage.”

Callan nodded, and we scaled a nearby fir tree. “Wait here,” Callan whispered, and before I could respond, he dove into the tree house heels first. A moment later, two large vines flew from out of nowhere and whipped inside the tree house.

“Callan!” I yelled, forgetting the warning to wait and scrambling into the tree house.

My panic relaxed slightly when I took in the scene inside.

Callan had secured the two members of Team Xylem who had obviously been stationed as the last line of defense.

They were now tied to their seats, vines wrapped securely around their waists, hands, and mouths.

In the center of the tree house, on a small wooden table, sat the rose.

“We need someone with a floral affinity to break the enchantment and get it out of the capsule. Glad I know someone with one of those,” Callan said, picking up the capsule and balancing it easily in one hand.

My eyes widened when I realized he was referring to me. “What? Can’t you do it?”

“It’ll be good practice.”

“There’s plenty of time to practice when we’re not in the middle of a high-stakes game!” I looked around, expecting another member of Team Xylem to arrive in the tree house at any moment. My heart was still pounding from the chaos of the past few minutes.

“And that’s why it’s the perfect time to practice,” Callan said. He passed the capsule to me. “There are a number of ways to approach this. Take your pick.”

I let out a huff but then forced myself to concentrate.

I relaxed my breathing and focused on the deep-ruby rose, willing myself to recall all I’d learned about the Rosaceae family.

As if flipping through a mental drawing in my notebook, I pictured the spiral leaf arrangement, the hypanthium, the thorns that lined the stem—the one sharpness amongst all its beauty.

I zoomed into the aspects I’d seen through the microscope—the tissues then the cells—and envisioned the cytoplasm of each stretching. An idea came to me, and I formed the Floracantus I’d practiced with Callan.

“ Petala expandere ,” I muttered.

The rose began to increase in size, filling the capsule.

My palms started to sweat, and I nearly lost my focus when I thought it wasn’t going to work, but with a few more centimeters of expansion, the petals and stem of the rose poked into the capsule, and it popped with a loud snapping sound.

Whatever material the capsule was made of floated into the air like sparkling dust.

Before I knew what was happening, Callan’s arms were around my waist, and he was floating us to the ground. For a moment we both stood there, grinning like frozen dolls, with me gripping the enlarged rose and Callan’s hands still loosely grazing my hips.

Our eyes met, and my smile deepened at the playfulness I read in his expression. I so rarely saw him let loose like this, caught up in the moment of something simply… fun. And I was surprised I felt this way. The competition had been fun. Exhilarating, even.

“Nice work!” Moira shouted, appearing at my side. I was relieved to see that she’d managed to free herself from her captors in the river. She gave Callan a high five. We locked eyes for a second, and he smiled again, eyes crinkling at the corners. I lifted the rose into the air triumphantly.

Moira started chanting “Team Phloem” and led our celebratory crew back toward the academy, but all I could think was that I wished for a few more moments alone with Callan Rhodes.