Page 31

Chapter Thirty-One

I sat in eager, slightly stunned anticipation as Petra began to explain the plan. “Professor East provided samples of the poisoned soil that he collected last year. While he’s been running his own tests, he thinks that us defensives may be able to find something he hasn’t, and I agree.”

She removed a jar of soil from behind the secret wall panel and set it on the table. “I have been doing research in a niche field of detecting magical signatures. This is a skill that defensives are particularly well suited for.”

“Magical signatures?”

“It’s a new field of magical botanical science still in its infancy.

But the theory is that using magic to modify a plant or soil leaves behind a trace.

It doesn’t sound groundbreaking since we know that if someone modifies a tree’s cells, for example, they have to be someone with a tree affinity.

But when it comes to soil manipulation, it’s not obvious what affinity power the manipulator had. ”

“Professor East described some of the things that were added to the soil last year to poison the verdant shield. You’re saying that there might be a way to trace the signature of whoever did that? ”

“Correct. It won’t lead us to a person, but it should lead us to an affinity power. Or multiple affinities, if that was the case.”

I leaned forward. “Have you found anything so far?”

“I’ve gotten close to untangling the signature, but a small piece of the process keeps eluding me. I believe you could be of some help here.”

“How so?” My mind was racing, excited by this possibility.

“Soil is—what is the word you use?—tricky. It is a combination of many things, and only part of it is organic matter. Professor East tells me you have some skill in sensing the properties of soil. Combine that with your access to all of the affinity powers, and you may be primed to untangle the magical signatures from the various plant material in the soil.”

“What’s the process?” I asked, eager to get to work but slightly nervous about my skill level and whether I would be up to the task.

Petra explained a complicated series of steps that involved activating the magical signatures in the soil sample then sorting through each and every piece to determine their origin.

As she talked and demonstrated the process on a clump of soil, I chewed on my lower lip and kept my eyes locked on every step, absorbing each word and trying to envision how it worked.

This was far beyond any scientific or magical work I had done so far, but the thrill of finally getting a lead on the soil poisoner propelled me forward.

When Petra got to the final step, she said a Floracantus for illumination. “ Cellula illuminare .”

There was a slight glow in a portion of the soil, but it died out before I could fully process it. “That’s the problem I have been encountering. The signatures just won’t hold for me. Even here, in the green zone, my power isn’t enough.”

“And you think mine will be?”

“I’ve never seen anyone pick up poison detection as quickly as you, Briar.

If you’re anywhere as in tune to magical signatures as to poisons, we stand a good chance.

” She scooped a dash of soil into a plastic petri dish and passed it to me.

“Go ahead and give it a try. You can work on a small sample for now, so don’t worry about messing anything up. ”

I nodded and dove in, careful to match the steps Petra had demonstrated.

The process was as complicated as it looked, especially the sifting.

I had to sense the plant material in the soil, separate it from the other components, examine it at the cellular level, and then prepare to activate the components that had been enhanced with magic.

While I was sliding portions of soil into piles, Petra was watching closely.

“Okay, I think I’m ready for the activation,” I said, not taking my eyes from the soil that was between my hands.

“Go ahead.”

I latched on to the particles of soil that carried a trace of something unusual. It was a task I had done before. Only this time, it wasn’t poison I was detecting but the trace of magic.

“ Cellula illuminare ,” I whispered. As if fireflies were coming to life inside the soil, a few patches lit up, glowing a soft chartreuse.

Petra let out a satisfied laugh. “Well done, Briar. The trace is holding. Now, we just have to feed these into the mass spectrometer and see what output we get.”

She removed a machine the size of a video game console from behind the panel and hooked it up to a laptop I hadn’t noticed her remove from her bag.

“I thought mass spectrometers were huge,” I said, eyeing the machine.

“In the nonmagical world, they are. But we’ve developed a proprietary version that can be a lot smaller since magic does so much of the upfront work.”

She slid the petri dish with specks of glowing soil into a slot in the machine. I strummed my fingers on the table as I waited for the results to process.

At the sound of a trilling ding from the computer, we both stopped what we were doing and gathered around the screen.

“All right, let’s see what we’ve got,” Petra said.

We were looking at a graph that was a series of thin spikes with numerical values above each. “This tells us the match of each compound in the sample,” she explained. “We can compare them to known values. If there are any unknowns, by human standards, those will be our magical enhancements.”

I watched as she made her way through the numbers, noting each item on the chart.

She annotated four of them and highlighted the peaks on the screen.

“These are our four magical enhancements. Now, we just need to compare them to known values from our magical botanists’ records.

” She pressed a few keys on the keyboard, and a report popped up.

Petra let out a breath. “We’ve got something here. These enhancements were all placed on leaf matter—of oak, pine, and cedar, to be exact. All extremely common in the forest around the academy.”

My eyes grew wide at the implication. “Leaf matter. You’re saying that whoever poisoned the soil had a tree affinity?”

“The evidence indicates that, yes. We can test a few more samples to see if they had multiple affinities that they used here. But this is good information. Excellent work, Briar.”

I smiled my thanks, but my stomach twisted slightly. This was real evidence—beyond a doubt—that a magical botanist had manipulated the soil in a way that was harmful for the verdant shield and Evergreen Academy.

“Let’s get back to it,” I said, rolling up my sleeves in determination. I would test every ounce of soil if it meant getting to the bottom of this mystery.

Petra and I worked for a few more hours, testing dozens of soil samples that I activated, but the only identification link we were able to make was to the trees.

This meant the magical botanist who had manipulated the soil had had a strong tree affinity, and if they had any others, they hadn’t used them.

I was desperate to tell Callan the news, so I asked, “Is this part of our study confidential?”

Petra thought about it for a moment. “Has Professor East allowed you to discuss the soil poisoning with anyone else?”

“There’s another student in the loop, yes.”

“Then I imagine you can share this development with them, but check with Professor East if you’re not sure.”

I nodded. “What are you going to do with this information?”

“I will pass the results along to Professor East. If there is more he thinks we can do, we’ll follow his lead.

Beyond that, until more information becomes available, we let the leaves fall where they may.

This was great work for a first session, Briar.

I have a feeling you and I have even bigger things in store. ”