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Chapter Fifty-Five

O nce back at Meadow’s house, we filled her and Hollis in on almost everything that had happened at the tree conservatory. As I had requested, neither of us mentioned Alex. That was something we were going to have to parse out more extensively when we were alone.

“You saw Wyatt?” Meadow raised an eyebrow. “How was that?”

“About like you’d expect. You can always count on Wyatt to be in the wrong place at the right time,” Callan said.

He passed me a bowl of flour he had magically enhanced with his trailing harvester ability, and I began to whisk it together with the baking soda.

I needed to let off some steam, and since I had somehow forgotten to pack any art supplies, I was resorting to my aunt’s favorite way to de-stress: baking.

We had a little time before we needed to leave for the moss annual meeting, so here we were.

I listened intently, glad to let Meadow ask the questions for once. I was eager to know more about Callan’s brother and why the encounter had set him on edge.

“He still on his high horse?” Meadow asked.

Callan grunted. “You could say that. ”

“Weird that he ran into you right when you were at the archival tree. Do you think he was there for the quill?” Meadow kicked her boots casually as she sat on the barstool near the counter. I could hear the faint thud of them each time they hit the wood.

“There are lots of reasons he could have been there,” Callan said cautiously. “Hard to know what his motivations are. His loyalties are tied up.” He watched me as I mixed the dry and wet ingredients, and he held out the cake pan when I was ready to pour the batter inside.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Alex had been foremost on my mind when we were fleeing the tree conservatory, but my curiosity about Callan’s brother was intense.

Callan sighed. “My brother works for an… organization. He’s beholden to their directives, not his own moral compass.”

“Way to be cryptic,” Meadow said with a snort.

“Seriously,” I murmured, smoothing the batter then sticking the cake into the oven.

“Throw us a bone,” Meadow said. “Wyatt used to be fun growing up. Then he just disappeared.”

Callan’s gaze dashed to Hollis, who was building a pine needle castle at the dining room table but listening to our conversation.

“My brother is… an interesting person. He’s hyper intelligent but not always emotionally so.

He made it into a position he’s always wanted, and now, he is jockeying to climb the ladder further.

He’ll use anyone—and any scrap of information—to make that happen. ”

“What kind of position?” I asked. The previous year, Callan had said he didn’t have the clearance to talk about his brother’s job—or something along those lines. Was that still true? Had anything changed in what we could talk about now that I was part of the Root and Vine Society?

Callan studied me, seeming to consider his next words .

I beat the butter and sugar for the frosting, holding my breath in anticipation of whatever he was going to say next.

“My brother works for the Department of Botanical Intelligence, the DBI.”

Meadow whistled, and the kicking against the counter ceased. “Didn’t see that coming.”

I considered the name and whipped the frosting more quickly. “Intelligence… What? You mean like the botanist’s version of the CIA?”

A ghost of a smile touched Callan’s lips. “Kind of. Without the life-or-death stakes, usually.”

“What kind of work does the DBI do?”

“They keep tabs on the greatest threats to the plant community. My brother is on the team that combats smuggling of rare species.”

“That’s a thing? I’ve heard of animals being smuggled but… plants?”

“Oh yeah,” Hollis pitched in. “Succulents, orchids, cycads. There are massive underground operations for these things.”

I mulled it over as I finished whipping the frosting. Each time I thought I was understanding this world, new information would knock me down several pegs.

“All right, now that we all know Wyatt’s a big shot, are we ready to check out this quill?” Hollis asked, effectively halting our conversation. But I tucked all the information about Callan’s brother away, hoping to discuss it with Callan at a less intense time.

“Thought you’d never ask.” Meadow jumped from the stool and went to Callan’s backpack. She removed the quill from the protective bag and set it on the table. “How do we activate it?”

“A connecting Floracantus. That’s what the old botanists used to tie their quills to the books. Saying it again should refresh it and get the quill to respond,” I said, pulling all the information from what I had researched .

Callan nodded in agreement. “Go ahead, Briar.”

I readied myself, drew on all of my affinities, then said, “ Simul sumus ,” and the quill shivered.

We each stood completely still as the quill spun slowly on the table.

For one moment, it seemed to bobble toward the southeast, but then it began to spin again, occasionally switching directions erratically.

My hopes deflated so quickly that I could practically feel them leaving me, like oxygen from a plant’s stomata.

“I take it that didn’t work?” Hollis asked, his question directed at me.

Callan shook his head. His eyebrows were deeply furrowed.

I gathered myself and leaned closer to the quill, reaching out to the oak gall that made up the ancient, preserved ink inside it. There was a snag on my power, and I stilled. Something wasn’t right.

“What is it?” Callan asked, picking up on my use of magic.

“It’s strange. The magic… it’s constricted. It’s like it’s being blocked somehow.”

I glanced between the three of them. Meadow was biting her lip, but Callan’s eyes were locked on me, and he nodded encouragingly.

“How do you know?” Hollis asked.

“I can feel it.” The sensation was familiar from when I worked on detecting the defensive aspects of plants in my field research with Petra. I could feel that something with a purpose other than life and growth was in the ink.

I reached out with my powers again, prodding more deeply. But unlike in my lessons with Petra, when I could undo the defense, this one was locked away, as if there was something contributing to it that I couldn’t feel.

“A blocking spell,” Callan murmured, a hint of surprised awe in his voice. “Complicated magic.”

At his words, I reached out again, concentrating with every cell in my being. Finally, I let out a breath. The cells of the plant felt like they were fighting to work for me, but they were bound by miniscule ropes.

“And how do we unblock it?” Meadow asked, more to the group than to me.

“I’m not sure. Blocking spells were banned some time ago and are very uncommon now. I’ll do some research on how they work as soon as we get back to the academy,” Callan said.

I nodded. “Me too.” If there was a chance I had been right about the quill working for me and that all we needed to do was remove this blocking spell, I would scour every piece of research I could find.

“Okay, let’s put it away. We need to get ready for the gala,” Meadow said, reluctance in her voice.

I ran my hands along the feather of the quill before placing it into its protective bag and returning it to the backpack. It felt like we were toting around a stolen copy of the Declaration of Independence.

And given the structure of the society of magical botanists, perhaps in some ways, we were.