Page 18 of Growing Memories (Valley of Sylveren #2)

Chapter Eleven

Peeking through the window set into Trunk’s outer door, Eunny saw that Ollas was alone. She sauntered in, a mock disapproving look on her face. “I thought you were grading?”

Ollas glanced over his shoulder, a smile lighting his face, and pointed to a short pile of paperwork. “I did.” He hunched his shoulders sheepishly. “I’m just taking a break.”

She stopped next to him, boosting herself up so she could sit on the countertop, legs dangling. “Slacking off, I see,” she joked, though she had to force levity into her tone and smooth the tightness from her expression.

Ollas peered at her. “Problem at the Mighty Leaf?”

Eunny scrunched her face in displeasure. “Just…mother problems. Nothing new, it’s just been a while.” She tilted her head as she eyed the topmost paper. “The novices going to be all tears after their first university exam?”

“I’m sure this wasn’t their first,” Ollas said. “Jolly has the Intro to Arcane Influences on Statistics class this term, and she likes to nip in the bud any thoughts that her name and personality are related by giving an ‘evaluation quiz’ the first week.”

Eunny winced, shaking her head. “Hang on.” She turned the paper so it faced her. “Are you changing the answer key?”

“Yes. Half of the class has gotten that question wrong.” Ollas’s mouth curved with a soft smile.

Eunny stared at him. “And? Tell them to study harder.”

“Half of the class, Eunny,” Ollas repeated. “I strike any question with that kind of failure rate for lack of clarity.”

“Isn’t that being soft on them?” Eunny folded her arms over her chest. “Life isn’t going to give them a pass for not understanding the question. You’re not doing them any favors with coddling, and I don’t just mean if they go to mean old Central. This won’t pass in Sylvan, either.”

“A majority failure rate is indicative of a larger problem,” Ollas said, his voice patient but firm, without condescension. “Either it’s a failure in my teaching of the subject or a failure in how I’ve worded the question. Either way, it’s a failure on my part.”

Eunny squinted at him. “What about the ones who got it right? Extra credit? Tough luck?”

Ollas chuckled. “The question is struck for everyone.”

“So they get nothing for getting it right the first time around.”

“The point is more to educate the whole as evenly as I can.” His smile turned wry. “It’s not a perfect approach.”

“I’ll say,” Eunny scoffed, though she was more flummoxed than disdainful.

“I’m still convinced my Intro to Herbalism professor wrote his tests as opaquely as possible so he could yell at our miserable scores and turn it into a lecture about detail and intuition and ‘your excuses don’t mean anything to your patient if they’re dead, Miss Song. ’”

Ollas tilted his head toward her. “You think I’m a soft-hearted progressive turning out a weakened generation of emotionally fragile would-be scholars.” Though he tried to keep his tone neutral, amusement crept in.

“That was specific. I take it Admin hasn’t always approved?”

“There have been discussions, but no one’s come for my head yet.”

Eunny laughed. “I’ll give you that your approach is a damn sight nicer than what we got at the House of Healing, but maybe body magic needs to be more exacting. People get touchy about pain, who’d have thought? Or I’m just bitter. Possessing empathy and expressing it… Eh. Not the same.”

“You’re plenty empathetic.”

Eunny rolled her eyes. “No wonder your students love you.”

“I get my share of bad reviews.” Ollas grinned. “But you didn’t come here for my thoughts on pedagogy.”

She shrugged, gaze roving around the greenhouse before settling on the rear antechamber’s door, which reminded her of the trayful of baby plants she’d found a few days before. She glanced sidelong at him, eyebrows rising. “You started another project without telling me.”

“Project?” A furrow marred his brow, then recognition hit. “Oh, the divisions. Yes, come see.”

Ollas hopped down from the counter. He grabbed the potting tray he’d been assembling before she came in and beckoned for Eunny to follow him into the antechamber.

“Isn’t it my job to help with your stuff?” she asked.

“I can manage a few steps,” he said with mock indignation.

Eunny poked him. “Your arm’s moving pretty well, too. You don’t really need me at all.”

“I need you,” Ollas blurted out. His hand came up, stuttering in the air as if he couldn’t decide whether to press his fist to his mouth or make some other gesture. He settled for an exaggerated roll of his recovering shoulder. “I still need you for the overhead lifting.”

The pleased feeling was back, fluttering giddily in her chest. Eunny pinched her lips together to keep from grinning from ear to ear like a fool. “Sure, we’ll go with that.”

She squatted next to the seed tray, careful not to touch anything.

Just her luck that she hadn’t thought to bring her gloves.

The faint pulling sensation was back, but not nearly as intense as the night she’d fallen into the outside patch.

It was more of a hum, vibrating unobtrusively at the back of her mind, waiting.

“I’ve been looking into the origin of the plants outside. They’re from the delegation.” Ollas cleared space on the rack’s upper shelf so Eunny could place the seed tray on top. He glanced at her, apprehension crossing his face. “Are you— We don’t have to work on?—”

“It’s fine,” Eunny said with a casual shake of her head. “How’d you get your hands on these?”

“The Sentinels confiscated everything at the camp at the time. These were just seeds back then, deemed mundane. The record log was incomplete, so I’m still trying to hunt down the notes we took when they were first brought in, but I remember Rai and some of the Sentinels’ mages testing them.”

“If they’re not magical, why are you fussing with them now?”

Ollas caressed a leaf with one hand. “They’re… changing. See how the leaf blade is widening? They’re developing distinct petioles.”

Eunny squinted. “Meaning?”

He chuckled. “They’re looking more like this”—he tapped the philodendron next to them—“and less like grass.”

“And that’s rare?” she guessed.

“Very. And they feel… It’s almost like I can—” A spark of golden light flickered at the tip of his index finger.

One little spark that fizzled as quickly as it had appeared.

Ollas huffed to himself, as if this was a common occurrence.

“It’s like they want magic, but they don’t react to it.

Not that I can give them much, so I’m going with the next best thing.

” He nodded toward the potting tray and the variety of soil mixes and amendments he’d gathered.

“You have an entire patch of them outside,” Eunny said, a reluctant, resigned feeling settling into her bones. “Why are you making more?”

“There’s something about them,” Ollas said, excitement in his face. “The delegation had them for a reason. I want to run some tests to see if I can figure out why.”

“Fine, I’m game,” Eunny sighed. “Can I wear your gloves? I forgot mine.”

He slapped his pair into her hand. “I just want to amend the current transplant mix.”

She picked up a small scoop. “Okay, if you handle the plants, I’ll shovel.”

They set to work. Eunny spooned different amendments into the tray at Ollas’s prompting, mixing it with a hand rake as he fluffed the dirt around the fresh divisions of the delegation plants.

“Do you, uh…” Ollas began in a hesitant voice. When Eunny gestured for him to continue, he said, “Do you remember plants like these at the delegation?”

“No, they only had me check dried herbs and some seeds the Eyllics were offering,” Eunny said, pausing as she closed her eyes in thought. “Remedies for aid workers and trade merchants to use while making deliveries in Rhell. Supposed to be a goodwill gesture, but…”

Eunny opened her eyes so she could deposit the mixture into the pots. “Nothing we hadn’t already seen, from what I could tell. I think most of them were just for show?—”

A puff of dust swirled up. As she reached for the watering can, Eunny started to sneeze, accidentally taking a step toward Ollas and brushing against the plant’s closest leaf.

A blur of hot and cold emanated from the dirt mix, the churn of magic unmistakable as it filtered straight through her clothing like the barrier wasn’t there.

It caught her by surprise, the increasingly familiar pulling at her mind.

At her center. A swirl of magic flowed through her fingers, a sympathetic vibration humming beneath her skin.

The reaction was subconscious. Second nature, even after all this time.

Even if she’d abandoned it. Called her magic lost. Called— believed —it dead to her.

But her spark caught in the arcane reaction happening in the seed tray and swept her along.

The flow of magic was so reminiscent, just for a second, of how it had felt on that awful day. Wild, rushing, draining away from her.

No. Eunny fought panic. She was here, in the greenhouse.

Not in the delegation’s camp. But the magic was swirling through her fingers, frissons of cold energy pricking her skin.

She remembered slipping. Falling. Feeling like some vital part of her was being sucked out.

She was losing control, again. A scream built in the back of her throat.

“Keep stirring.”

Eunny blinked. She knew that voice.

“Sorry, should’ve mentioned the reaction. Stir, stir, stir,” Ollas said, making an encouraging motion with his hands. “The enchantment in the amendment weakens if it gets hot or cold spots.”

Automatically, she moved her rake through the dirt, sloshing water onto the dusty mix. The motion dispersed some of the tingling sensation. She focused on the sound of Ollas’s calm voice, willing her hands not to shake.