Page 11

Chapter Eleven

A t the sound of my name, I turned to see Kale Brightmoor standing there, smiling pleasantly. He appeared to be of Korean descent and had a neatly groomed beard and was wearing khaki pants and a flannel shirt. The casual outfit belied his status as a member of the prestigious Board of Regents.

“That’s me,” I said, swallowing.

“Why don’t you join the harvesters today?”

“Oh,” I said, taken by surprise. “Sure, okay.” My friends waved goodbye and began to walk toward the fern gathering, casting looks over their shoulders to check on me.

“The harvesters will be meeting by the gate for a foraging competition,” Kale Brightmoor said. “Let’s walk together.”

I fell into step alongside him.

“So, Briar, have you expressed an interest in any particular affinity more than the others?”

“Oh,” I said again, stalling. I wasn’t sure how to frame my answer here. Callan had warned me time and again to be careful with the board members, and I wasn’t going to forget that advice now. “I don’t think so. They all have things that are special about them.”

“They do indeed. And how about the harvesters? Have you spent much time among them?”

“I rotate during my affinity studies, and I did some work with them this morning when we prepared the harvest donations.”

“Good. Well, I hope you haven’t selected which field you’ll be working in without giving each of them a full and fair exploration. I heard you were partial to trees, but that could simply be a rumor.”

Alarm bells began to flare, and again I heard Callan’s warnings in my head. Still, my curiosity kept me from holding my tongue. “Interesting. Where did you hear that?”

“Wendy Rhodes seemed to think you were friendly with her son last year. Was that incorrect?”

“We are… acquainted, yes. I’m friends with a lot of people here at Evergreen Academy.” Something in me chilled at the revelation that members of the Board of Regents had discussed me and my… friendships.

“Well, I’m excited to see how you do working with the harvesters today.” He nodded toward the gate to Evergreen Academy, where Professor Variegata was surrounded by harvesters. “Healthy food production is one of the most critical issues of our time. Just a friendly reminder.”

As Kale Brightmoor peeled away, I tried to calm the nervous twist in my stomach. Was he buttering me up for the harvesters? Had I said the right things? More than ever, I wished Callan were here. He always seemed to know what to do. I took a deep breath and joined the other harvesters.

Professor Variegata was standing by a stack of small baskets, and the vine that was often snaking around her wrists was in full motion today, moving across her forearm and palm like a calming massage.

“We’ll be doing a foraging task today. Here’s your objective,” she began.

“You have thirty minutes to return here with a basketful of edible foods. At least two different types of foods are required. You must prepare whatever you forage for consumption, so don’t get too creative.

Nothing poisonous, of course, unless you know how to counter them.

” Her eyes shot to me. “Please pair up. Any questions?”

When we all shook our heads, she took a seat on a large stump and gently waved a hand at us in the universal signal of well, get going .

I looked around as harvesters who were well acquainted began to group up in twos. When my eyes landed on Kaito, a second-year I knew, I caught his eye. “Want to be partners?” I asked.

“Sure.” Kaito reached down and picked up a basket. “I wasn’t expecting this to happen outside of the campus walls. You’re local, right? What’s best for foraging around here?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I admit I’ve never foraged before beyond picking blackberries. Those are in season, so we should keep an eye out. Mushrooms are common here too. Do mushrooms count even though they’re fungi and not plants?”

Kaito contemplated it. “The only rule was that it had to be edible.”

“Okay, I think mushrooms and berries are our best bet. Maybe some nuts.”

Kaito began to walk, the basket swinging from his hand. “I’ll reach out with my senses to see if I feel any, but with the quantity of trees out here, I don’t know how loud those signatures will be.”

I nodded. “I’ll do the same.” I was grateful that the task was happening outside the gates, which meant my powers were alive and well.

I didn’t have much experience using my powers to locate something, but I tried to tap into what I did know.

Last year, during a game of Capture the Roses, we’d used our tree affinity powers to have the trees communicate and guide us to the other team’s rose. Maybe the same could apply here.

I searched my brain for what I knew about the Rubus genus, which contained brambles like blackberries and raspberries.

Nothing very helpful came to mind, so I tried envisioning the roots and rhizomes, the green leaves, thorns, and dark, juicy fruits.

I pictured the blackberry bushes I had seen growing up, clinging to the edges of roadways.

“Let’s get out of the forest,” I suggested.

We were walking near a river that ran parallel to a road when I sensed a change in the soil nearby.

My attention was drawn to a massive oak tree whose roots were creeping out toward the river.

Without a word to Kaito, I shot toward the tree and began to scan the ground below it. “Kaito, over here!”

“What is it?”

I pointed to the pale-brown shapes in the ground. “It’s a mushroom gold mine.”

“And they are edible?” Kaito crouched down next to me and began to examine a mushroom. One look at the distinctive pits and ridges that formed the mushroom’s cap was answer enough, and Kaito seemed to know his mushroom anatomy too. “Good. These are morels. We can eat them.”

Kaito was already tugging the mushrooms from the earth and adding them to his basket. “How’d you sense them?”

“It wasn’t them. It was something about the soil. I think the pH is a little higher here.”

“You could sense the soil?” Kaito paused the mushroom collection to look up, a piece of straight black hair falling across his forehead. “That’s not a common power.”

I knelt and helped him collect the mushrooms. “I’m not very precise about it, but yeah.”

“No wonder Kale Brightmoor is trying to schmooze you.”

“Noticed that, did you?”

“He personally tasked you to join the harvesters today, right?”

I nodded.

“My mom says all this affinity separation has been brewing for a while. All it takes is for one affinity to start a power grab, and the others will follow. Each board member wants their affinity group to have the most influence in society.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for all the affinities to work together? We’re all magical botanists, right?”

“That’s the idyllic scenario and one Evergreen Academy was established on. Times are changing, though. As the environment becomes more under threat, magical botanists get more… desperate, I guess. Ready to find our second edible item?”

I nodded in agreement and looked around, trying to process everything Kaito had said. Changes had obviously been happening within the society over the summer, and Callan wasn’t the only one to notice. My eyes snagged on something farther along the road.

“I think those are blackberry bushes.” We hurried toward the bushes and began to pick the plump berries.

With my harvester affinity active here outside the gate, I didn’t have to be careful as I plucked the berries from the vines.

The thorns that would normally poke me had no effect.

I smiled and quickened my pace until we topped off the basket.

“I’ll work on cooking the morels by pulling water from the air and steaming them as we walk,” Kaito offered as we began to hurry back toward the grounds.

“Brilliant,” I said.

Occasionally, I heard a subtle whistling sound and a murmured Floracantus as Kaito worked miracles with steam, but otherwise, we walked in companionable silence.

When we got back to campus, two other pairs were gathered near Professor Variegata just inside the gate. One pair was finishing eating, and when they got a nod of approval from Professor Variegata, they walked back toward the academy.

Kale Brightmoor was standing back and slightly off to the side from Professor Variegata, watching each student carefully .

“All right, Nori and Graham, go ahead,” Professor Variegata said to the second pair.

The first-year student Nori held a basket that was brimming with acorns and nuts. She began murmuring a Floracantus that I vaguely recognized from my time working with the harvesters last year. Graham rotated the basket slightly in a rocking motion as Nori spoke.

Nori ran the acorns through her hands, and they ground down into flour then congealed and formed two small muffins. A moment later, Nori and Graham presented the muffins with a side of nuts.

“Impressive,” Professor Variegata said. She turned to us. “Kaito and Briar, what did you forage?”

“Mushrooms and blackberries,” Kaito said. “Cooked and ready.”

He held out the basket for Professor Variegata to examine, and when she nodded, each of us reached for a mushroom to taste. Even without any butter or seasonings, Kaito’s on-the-fly preparation was mouth-watering.

“Who prepared the mushrooms?” Kale Brightmoor asked.

“Kaito did,” I said.

“Briar found them,” Kaito said kindly.

“How so? Mushrooms are fungi, and we don’t usually sense them,” Kale Brightmoor said.

Between the sharp curiosity in his voice and what Kaito had said a few minutes earlier, I had the instinct to bite my tongue. I cast a glance at Kaito. “It was a lucky find. I spotted one near the base of a tree, and there were a dozen more nearby.”

Kale’s brow furrowed slightly, but he let it go and turned to watch the next group of students who had returned with their basket.

“Wise choice,” Kaito said as we walked away. “Don’t give them more fuel than they already have to fight over you.”

“Thanks for not saying anything,” I said.

“It’s always best not to show all your cards.” There was something in his voice that indicated he wasn’t only referring to not telling Kale Brightmoor about me being able to sense the pH in the soil.

“Enjoy your autumn equinox, Briar. I have a feeling we’ll be working together again soon.”