Page 25 of Growing Memories (Valley of Sylveren #2)

“If we can get the seedlings to survive transplanting in Rhell, they’ll have a shot at adapting,” Zhenya continued. “We need a bit of luck. The Restorers are getting spooked about people getting sick faster.”

Eunny muttered a few unkind words about investors safe in their beds in Graelynd, but her mind was stuck on something else.

The plants and needing to grow in the place of corruption—something about it stuck in her head, but she couldn’t quite parse out why.

Dae and the visit at the Healing Hut kept flickering at the back of her mind.

“Oh! Before I forget, can you pass this on to Ollas?” Zhenya handed her another envelope. “He mentioned you’re doing some research on the plants growing outside Trunk.”

“Trying to, anyway. Whether that’s wise or not.” Eunny shrugged, quickly changing the subject. “Where are you headed now?”

Zhenya glanced at the wall clock by the door. “Slowly make my way back to the office and work on the Professor’s report for Den’olm. You?”

“Get my stuff packed.” Eunny paused. “Why ‘slowly’ going to the office?”

Zhenya hid a smile. “Professor Rai had an…appointment, this afternoon.”

Eunny’s head snapped up. “Are you telling me that Saren Rai and Garethe Sor’vahl are currently, as we speak, fu?—”

Zhenya made hissing, shushing sounds and motions, her face going scarlet.

Eunny laughed—maybe cackled—in response.

That the two professors were romantically involved was perhaps the worst-kept secret on campus, but she never would’ve thought Rai, so proper and dignified, dare she say even a touch fussy, would be inclined toward anything remotely naughty. Garethe Sor’vahl, on the other hand…

The fragmented thoughts that had been floating around in Eunny’s head for days began to click into place.

Garethe Sor’vahl, the middle brother, mundane but heavily invested in environmental restoration and how magic could be utilized to save his homeland.

He also suffered from chronic illness caused by the poison, despite long periods of time away from any corrupted areas.

Ezzyn had rushed Dae to the Valley for healing, for fear that her sickness might become anything like what plagued Garethe.

While an entire summer spent in the Valley had improved Garethe’s condition, he was far from cured.

There was a connection: illness and poison and the design of the remedy Dae had imbibed in the Healing Hut. She just couldn’t figure out the order for it to make sense. Maybe a visit with Garethe was in order.

She glanced at Zhenya, who looked torn between being mortified and fighting giggles. Garethe could wait until tomorrow. Eunny had to pack for her relocation to Belle. Fortunate that she didn’t have much stuff to move.

Leaving Zhenya to her slow return to the faculty branch, Eunny confirmed her new lodging with the housing office, then hurried back to the Grove.

Finding spare crates for the assortment of things she’d acquired took longer than the packing up.

Gransen had absconded with the hand cart she’d originally brought.

By the time Eunny found it and piled her stuff in the common room in a manner she was reasonably sure wouldn’t topple over, Ollas had returned from his last office hours.

“Zhen has something for you,” she said, pointing to where she’d left the envelopes from her mail run.

Ollas perked up, hurrying over to break the wax seal. His eyes flew across the page, then up to her. “It’s about the delegation plants.”

“She got the Sentinels’ records?”

“No, they’re still looking, too, but Zhen is friends with one of the archive clerks and got us some notes.” Ollas handed her a slip of paper.

“What am I looking at?” Eunny asked. There was a botanical drawing and a block of text with lots of grovetender jargon and plant parts that she didn’t understand.

“I’m positive that our plants are getting ready to bloom.

Still not sure what they are, but they fit a lot of the criteria for rare bloom cycles,” Ollas said.

“Weather conditions. Remember the note about all the rain? We’re having that again now.

There must be a time element, too, since nothing induced them to change until now. And, I think it’s us. Source magic.”

Eunny frowned, setting the letter back onto the table. “Nev, but I don’t… I’ve never put magic into those plants.”

But that wasn’t entirely true. The night she’d fallen into the garden flashed through her mind.

The plants had still been those grassy mounds back then.

Some of her magic had escaped. A small amount.

Surely not enough to set off this rare bloom event Ollas was on about.

And the few drops she’d accidentally summoned over the little cutting he was trying to grow? That was nothing. It couldn’t be.

Ollas was oblivious to her rampaging thoughts.

He began to pace, emphasizing his words with swipes of his hand.

“I had them on me during the rescue. I’d been digging through the cache, and when the fighting broke out, I just stuck them in my pocket and ran out to help.

When your magic went… when all that happened, what if the seeds absorbed it?

We’ve seen how the plants seem to just take up magic.

What if they’re storing it and it’s part of what gets them to flower? ”

Eunny lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table. It was possible, she supposed. Even if she was a terrible gardener and preferred to buy her herbalism wares already harvested, the practice of imbuing seed stock was common for the varieties with which it worked.

“Okay, maybe, maybe, I can believe some of that,” she said. “But why now?”

“I think it’s us,” Ollas repeated. “Our magic. An imprinting spell—they’re used sometimes to control supply. Seeds that’ll only grow for specific magic-users. Or, in this case, flower. You’ve felt it, too, haven’t you? The pull they have. It’s been building for weeks. Months.”

Eunny’s mouth opened, her lips forming a denial. But… that restlessness, the unnamed certainty she’d been feeling. I think it’s us. The eye twitches that had been plaguing her since summer.

Since Ollas had returned to Sylvan to resume teaching. And the plants had only changed once she’d come back to the school. Since she’d fallen in the garden bed, fed them more magic that had, in turn, caused them to change.

Ollas stopped in front of her, eyes alight. “Now we have direction. Light magic. We can tailor the amendments and treatments for that, see if we can get them to bloom.”

“I don’t have any magic to give,” Eunny said weakly.

Ollas shrugged. “Even on my best of days, I don’t have much.” He shook his head, optimism rolling off him in joyous waves. “We can bring the ingredients in from other sources. I’ll have to research imprinting spells more, but… will you try this with me?”

Seeing him so excited, it was hard not to feel the same. It filled her with a warmth, affection, and a swell of pleasure to be so wanted. A smile tugged at her lips.

She tapped her fingers together as she thought aloud. “Eyllic seeds. Fired up with my old magic.” She glanced up at him. “We thinking healing properties?”

Ollas grinned. “Let’s find out.”

“Deal.”

Ollas’s laugh faded as he looked around, slowly comprehending the additional crates on the floor. “You’re leaving?” he said, eyes sweeping over her bags, dismay in his voice.

“They finally had a place open up in Belle. I appreciated the room”—she waved back to the adjoining door—“truly, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want something full-size.”

Ollas cracked a smile. “Can’t blame you for that.” He sighed, the sound wistful as he stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I’ll miss you.”

“Not going far. I got promoted, remember? From packhorse to...whatever I am now. Lapsed apothecary who won’t leave. And now, your secret lab partner.”

“Won’t be the same.”

“True. I can think of a few differences.” Eunny slowly walked over until she stood in front of him. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Because I still owe you an answer, don’t I?”

The knob at his throat twitched with his swallow. “Y-Yes?”

His hazel eyes were mostly dilated now, pupils so large and dark that Eunny could easily see her grin in the reflection.

His mouth dropped slightly open, leaving him looking equal parts awestruck and eager.

This close, she could see that his freckles dusted more than his nose, the spots a mix of tiny specks and larger dots.

She wondered if they existed elsewhere, if they were scattered across his body like stars.

She wanted to trace each constellation, see what reactions her touch could bring. See if she could make him spark.

“Do you remember what I said back in the greenhouse?” She put her hand flat against his chest and smiled to feel how his muscles shivered in response.

“You said—” Ollas had to clear his throat. “You said something about making things, er, grow.”

Eunny laughed. “Before that, Nev.”

“That you didn’t want to like me? Before.”

“That part. I did say that,” she agreed, nodding. Her fingers slid up to touch his neck. “What else?”

Ollas held himself still. Taut. “And I asked if that meant you do now.”

“Yes, and then we were so rudely interrupted.” She let her fingertips skim the stubble along his jaw. “But I think I’ve got my answer. Because you know the nice thing about me having my own place?”

Ollas held his breath. Eunny lifted her chin until she was inches from his mouth. “I do like you, Nev, and in Belle, we’ll never get interrupted.”

She meant to kiss him. Lightly. A flirty peck to test the waters, let him know she was game if he was.

She loved this moment, the tension as those last pieces of the unknown between them fell away.

The potential of everything they could be, before reality set a frame of reference.

Of comparison. Drawing out the mystery, the possibility, she savored it.

She wasn’t expecting shy, respectful, gentlemanly Ollas to grab her face and crash his mouth into hers.

Wasn’t expecting him to be so hungry, wasn’t expecting the way his tongue invaded.

There was nothing timid about the way Ollas cupped her chin and angled her mouth to his liking.

The growl that came from him when she stroked his tongue with her own could be described with a variety of words, but none of them would be shy.

He crushed Eunny to him, his hand spanning the small of her back.

She let her hands rove over his shoulders, his torso, reveling in the strength she found. Big hands. Thick fingers. A firm grip. Her nipples tightened at the thought of what this aggressive side of Ollas might do to her if given any encouragement.

She wasn’t the only one having parts go firm. When he shifted and drew her against him, she pressed into his thigh and felt the bulge there. The prodding through the constraint of his trousers, in much more detail than the brief touch she’d had before.

Eunny choked. “Oh, shit, Nev.” She looked down, saw the outline along the inside of his leg. “You’re an animal.”

Ollas froze. Being so close, she felt the moment realization caught up with him.

He sprang back. “Oh, oh, gods all… Fuck, Eunny, I’m so sorry.”

She stared at him, then couldn’t stop the cackle that broke free. She could’ve fried an egg on his face, it was so red.

“No, Nev, this is—” She could barely keep from devolving into snort-laughs. “Better I know now. Forewarned and forearmed and all of that, right? Oh, Goddess, I am going to need to be prepared!”

Ollas hid his face in his hands. “Earthen, please kill me.”

“No, not before I get a chance to sample the?—”

“What is all this ruckus? You know, you can hear it all the—” Gransen stopped in the doorway. He looked at Eunny, then looked at Ollas, who was still covering his face. Then, failing at any sense of self-control, Gransen looked down. “Should I go?”

Eunny smothered another laugh. “No, no, I’m on my way out.

” She went to the handcart and rummaged through her bag on top for the envelope from Yerina.

She slapped it against Gransen’s chest as she hauled the cart toward the door.

“Look through these and help me with a shortlist for the café. We need a budget.”

Gransen gasped, eyes going wide.

Eunny paused in the doorway, glancing back at Ollas, who was fiddling with his pockets. “I’ll see you later?” She tilted her head toward him, feeling her smile all the way to the corners of her eyes.

As she trundled down the hall, she heard a light clap of hands on cheeks, followed by Gransen’s solemn voice. “Boy, you are going to get fornicated.”