Page 29 of Growing Memories (Valley of Sylveren #2)

“Perhaps if I was magic-born, but I don’t have anything to grant it sticking power.

” Garethe sat up, warmth in his manner. “Just means I get to stay down here more. It’s much nicer to be in a classroom than at court, let me tell you.

” He stood, stretching out his back. “Speaking of, I should get back to grading, but it was a pleasure, Eunny. If you have any other questions, you’re always welcome to ask. ”

“Thanks for indulging me.” Eunny felt her grin widen. “Make those kids earn their marks.”

Garethe tipped his head back with a shout of a laugh. “Not a problem from me. Poor lambs get quite the shock. They think the jolly Rhellian will be a breeze.” He winked. “It’s all misdirection. Sare is the soft touch, but these dear little Ini Ones are scared of him. They’ll learn in time.”

With a final wave, Garethe departed. Eunny watched him go, sipping at her tea as she tried to reconcile the cheerful Rhellian man with the reserved, stately Professor Rai.

An unlikely pairing, but then, she was one to talk.

Appearances could be deceiving, after all.

As recently as a few weeks ago, Eunny wouldn’t have believed she’d be sleeping with Ollas Nevin. Would’ve laughed at the very thought.

Yerina took Garethe’s vacated seat, setting a small plate of fresh teacakes in front of Eunny. “New batch of red beans and Deiju syrup just came in this morning.”

Eunny bit into one, a gratified moan vibrating in her throat. “So good. Thanks, Auntie. Sorry I haven’t been by lately.”

“I can manage without you, Eunny dear. It’s good for you to be out.” Yerina watched Eunny wolf down another teacake. “I saw Gransen going through the café earlier.”

“Didn’t waste time, did he?” Eunny snorted. “I’m surprised he didn’t just camp out there.”

“You’ve decided on repairs?”

“I’ve delegated.”

A smile filled Yerina’s face. “I’m glad. The town just doesn’t feel right with it closed.”

Eunny’s own smile felt weak at the edges, as it always did when her repair café and the concept of permanency came up.

She loved her aunt, but someone so kindly and full of sunshine would never understand the reticence Eunny felt.

The guilt and the wrongness, trying to insert herself into the community like she was one of them.

As if she deserved to be there despite what her rogue magic had done.

Finding a level of personal comfort in the Grove was one thing, but having a space in the heart of Sylvan still made unease prickle her skin.

To Yerina and her eternal optimism, those kinds of thoughts just didn’t register.

The town loved her and tolerated Eunny sliding in on her auntie’s cloak tails.

Eunny wasn’t foolish enough to hope for anything more. Would never ask for it.

Yerina didn’t notice Eunny’s frozen expression, but it was just as well, for she moved on to easier topics. “Tell me about your new work. How is Ollas doing? Terryl said he was almost recovered when she was in last week.”

Eunny chuckled. Her aunt rarely set foot on the campus grounds, but being good friends with Ollas’s mother, Terryl Nevin, a reference librarian at the school, ensured she was well informed on any school gossip.

She regaled her aunt with stories from the elective and Eunny’s middling attempts to grow the same plants as the class.

Though she kept the specifics of her dabbling in apothecary work to a minimum, she admitted to enjoying being back at the school, and to her decision to linger until she was formally kicked out.

“It’s still mostly hauling dirt and stuff back and forth, cleaning pots and tools, that sort of thing. But… I like it,” Eunny said. “It’s different being there, this time around. The approach. It’s all new.”

“I’m sure. You could barely keep my window boxes alive, let alone study like an earth mage.” Yerina chortled to herself as she got to her feet. “Oh, before I forget, you’ve got a letter from Dae. I was just about to have it sent up to the school.”

She dug around in an apron pocket and pulled out a small envelope with Dae’s clean handwriting on the front.

“I’ll tell your mother about your school adventures in my next letter,” Yerina said, her tone becoming too casual. Eunny suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “Unless you’d rather tell her yourself?”

“Only you enjoy one-way correspondence, Auntie,” Eunny said dryly. “Tell her. Don’t tell her. She’s not going to care either way.”

In typical Yerina fashion, she managed to both ignore Eunny’s negativity and insist she was wrong at the same time. She hugged her again before going back to checking on patrons, and Eunny made her way back to Sylveren.

Her aunt’s joy in Eunny’s activities reminded her of Ollas—happy that she seemed happy.

And Eunny was. More than she could remember being in a long while.

Unburdened enough that she’d actually touched her magic, even if by accident.

Only a touch, but even that would’ve been unthinkable at the start of term.

She’d drawn up a few drops of magic and it had been… fine.

Eunny read Dae’s letter as she made her way back to the Grove. Considering they’d just seen each other in the last fortnight, Dae must have written it shortly after arriving back in Rhell. Eunny knew they liked to correspond a lot, but this was excessive.

Dae’s letter was indeed short. Not even a proper letter-letter, but more like a hastily penned note.

The secret delegation plant had transplanted well into the containment zone’s blighted soil, and preliminary tests from the camp’s mender suggested it would apply well to preventative tonics.

Not enough to cure those badly sickened by long exposure to the poison, but effective in slowing the concentrated toxicity’s ability to infect the healthy.

The menders think this might eliminate the need to leave the containment zones for long periods to recuperate, Dae wrote. Make more if you can!

Eunny reread Dae’s final plea, the words burning into memory long after she’d stowed the note back in her cloak pocket.

Maybe Ollas was right. The secret plants’ rate of change seemed to support his theory.

The strange pull. The restlessness that had been building all summer, that had taken off once Eunny and Ollas were in close proximity again, once the plants had gotten a taste of her magic.

Could the medley of sensations all have been part of the imprinting spell he spoke of, imparting a subconscious urge to fulfill it?

To make the plants bloom? But they fed on magic—her magic—and they needed more of it to make it past the current stall they had at just leaves.

Ollas could propagate every single clump outside of the greenhouse, but they wouldn’t achieve their new state, the healing variety Dae wrote of, without magic.

Back in her new apartment, Eunny immediately went to the counter where her trio of stems were suspended in glass vials filled with plain water. They’d exploded with new roots overnight. When she brought her face up next to one, a faint pulse of warmth emanated from the leaves.

Hesitantly, she touched one of the leaves and called up just a speck of her inner light. Only a scrap of it, enough to search for a hint of resonance and no more.

A single sparkle of golden light slipped from her finger to the satiny green leaf. It flared bright like an ember, then winked out. Yet in that brief moment, Eunny felt a hum of magic, as if the plant had been imbued. The hum held familiar notes of her own magic…and something else. Some one else.

Not body magic, but she’d remember the signature of Ollas and his thready light forever. Would always remember how her magic had ensnared him, tangled with his feeble light and traced through his body, wreaking havoc.

I think it’s us.

The memory of their electric lovemaking dimmed a bit in Eunny’s mind. He was right; they were affecting the plants. The imprinting spell, or whatever caused the instinctive pull in them, it took advantage when passions were running high. Any time self-control waned.

Eunny sank into a chair, eyes never leaving the plants in their glass vials on the counter.

They were still so small. Now that she looked at them and knew their inner hum, it was impossible not to feel it: a gentle presence but persistent, always tugging for more.

She hadn’t been able to put a name to the feeling before, but now…

The idea of giving the plants more of herself was disquieting.

Had needles of fear and denial and no clamoring in her head.

She balled her hands into fists, fingernails biting into her palms enough to make the rising panic subside.

The pain didn’t vanish fully, but it gave her enough room for clarity.

She wasn’t in this alone.