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It was Yarrow who called a halt.

“You haven’t eaten,” he said. “And you need to sleep.”

Waddling out of the middle of mountains of papers, Lotti piped up. “I’ve slept enough for six lifetimes. Get me a cup of water?”

“Terlu and I need to sleep, even if you’re fresh as a daisy,” he told the rose as he filled a glass and laid it on the table, a safe distance from the papers.

“Hah! Daisies dream of being as fresh as me. Just need a quick drink, and I’ll be as good as new.” Climbing up the side of the glass, Lotti plunged herself in and sighed.

He’s not wrong, Terlu thought. Her eyes felt gummy, and her neck ached like it did when she hadn’t moved enough. She hadn’t cracked the code yet, but she kept feeling as if she was close. It was elusive—every time she thought she’d figured out the pattern, it slipped away.

“Um, a little help here?” Lotti said, waving her leaves in the air.

Yarrow fished her out of the glass and laid her on a towel. He glanced at the window, which reflected the lanterns as if they were amber stars. “It has to be after midnight. Let’s return to my cottage, I’ll heat up some soup, and then we can catch some sleep?”

Soup sounded excellent. Her stomach answered for her with a magnificent growl.

She patted it consolingly. Food first, then sleep, she promised it.

“I used to study through the night regularly when I was at university, until once I showed up to an exam so tired that I wrote every answer in a different language, absolutely none of which were the language being tested.”

Lotti shuddered. “Okay, yes, humans need to sleep. No spellcasting without sleep. Especially no casting spells on my friends without sleep.”

Terlu slid off the stool and stretched her arms across her chest and then over her head. She was nowhere close to being able to cast a spell, but it was a valid point. She’d be useless if she couldn’t think clearly.

Waving her leaves, Lotti shooed them toward the door. “I’ll soak and sort until you get back.”

“You can come with us,” Terlu offered. She didn’t want to abandon the little rose for a second time. Yarrow grunted his agreement, which from him was an enthusiastic invitation.

“This is my home, or it used to be,” Lotti said. “This is where my memories are. Of Laiken. He was… I’m not ready to… I just want to stay, with whatever echo of him remains.” She then added, “But thank you.”

Terlu bundled herself up in her coat, while Yarrow put on his and then opened the door. Glancing back, she saw Lotti in the glow of the lanterns, hopping between the stacks of papers. She’ll be okay. She was, as she said, home. She needs time to grieve.

Stepping outside, Terlu felt the crisp cold seep into her throat, lungs, and bones.

Overhead, the sky was blue-black, with stars scattered across it, looking like strewn diamonds.

The silvery moon shone above the silhouettes of the pine trees.

It was a beautiful night. Very late. She’d lost track of how late it was.

The snow crunched under their shoes as they trudged down the road toward Yarrow’s cottage.

He’d pulled his hood tight so that all she could see was the shadow of his profile.

She wondered what he was thinking about.

Was he worrying about the risk they were taking?

Or perhaps he was thinking about his family?

Or the sorcerer? His responsibility to the greenhouses?

The wonder of the existence of sentient plants?

The mystery of magic, of the night sky, or of three strangers coming together for a single enchanted purpose?

“Got a good crop of garlic this year,” Yarrow said. “You like garlic?”

“Um, yes?” She adored garlic, actually. “Especially roasted garlic.”

“I’m going to add more to the soup.”

He didn’t say anything further. Around them, the forest was silent. “I’ve never seen garlic growing,” she ventured. “Only after it’s been peeled and cooked.”

“It’s a bulb,” Yarrow said. “Its scape can grow up to four feet tall—‘scape’ is what you call the green stalk part. It’s edible too, but you can cut that back so the plant concentrates its energy on the bulb. Makes for a bigger bulb.”

I found his secret. Every time he talked about plants, he lit up. He loved them. Enough so that he’d appealed to faraway strangers in the imperial city for help, when he very clearly was not someone who was fond of people.

“Has to be planted deep in dry, loose soil,” he continued. “Sunny is best, so it’s in one of the greenhouses with a false sun.”

She remembered the glowing orb in the swampy room. It would be nice to see a false sun in a room that wasn’t quite as hot. “I assume the false sun is a spell?”

“Yes.”

“Will you show me sometime, the garlic greenhouse?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wondered if that was asking too much.

He could only be making polite conversation, except he didn’t seem the type to be bothered with silences, which was frankly just as nice as someone who was happy to chat all the time.

He turned his head and smiled at her. “I’d love to.”

Maybe I don’t have to worry so much about what he’s thinking, if he’s just thinking about plants and not wishing I were someone a lot more useful and a lot less… unlawful. That was a nice thought. She hugged it to herself as they walked in silence back to Yarrow’s cottage.

Inside, it was lovely and warm and perfect.

She’d spent only one night here so far, but walking into Yarrow’s cottage still felt like stepping into a familiar embrace.

She thought of the run-down blue cottage.

As cute as it could potentially be with a lot of work, she wasn’t certain it would ever feel as perfect and wonderful and cozy as this cottage.

She was secretly glad it wasn’t habitable yet.

He shed his coat and immediately set to tasks: coaxing the low fire higher, positioning a skillet over it to warm, and then peeling cloves of garlic.

“How can I help?” Terlu asked.

Without turning around, he said, “You can pet the cat.”

She grinned. That hardly counted as a task, but it was something that she could quite happily do.

Emeral was still lounging on the new bed.

As she sat on the side, he stretched, splaying out his toes and his feathers.

“How was your day, Emeral?” She stroked his back beneath his wings, and he began to purr.

Yarrow tossed the garlic into the skillet, where it sizzled.

“Are there other winged cats on the island?” Terlu asked. “Where did he come from?”

“Got left behind,” Yarrow said. “When my sister went to live with our aunt and uncle… She’d had a cat who had kittens, and they’d rounded up all but one.

Couldn’t find the last one. They searched and searched, but the boat couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

I promised to send him on when I found him. ”

“But you didn’t?” It was more of a statement, but she made it sound like a question anyway so he’d keep talking. Purring, Emeral pushed his head into her hand so she’d pet his neck and his chin. She obliged.

Yarrow shrugged. “He didn’t want to leave.”

It was, at least, a friendlier kind of shrug. Before, when she’d asked about his family, she’d felt like she was pulling words out of him. Now… he wasn’t acting as if he wanted to bolt.

“He’s good at making it clear what he wants,” Yarrow said, amusement in his voice. “You can feed him, if you like. He’ll love you forever if you do. There’s a direct line from his stomach to his heart.”

Terlu hopped off the bed—or not precisely hopped but stood up with enthusiasm.

After bending over the worktable, perched on a stool, for hours on end, her body felt too stiff for rapid movements like a hop.

She wondered if she’d aged while she was in statue form and decided it didn’t matter if she had.

It felt good to ache; it meant she could feel. “What does he like to eat?”

“There’s a bit of grouse in the chill box.

” He nodded at a cabinet near the sink. It had, she noticed, a thicker door than the others.

She hadn’t looked through any of the cabinets to see what was inside them.

“Can’t grow meat in the greenhouses, so I set a few traps in the forest, mostly for Emeral’s dinner. ”

Crossing the cottage, she opened the “chill box” and felt a breath of cold air. Hence the name. Makes sense. “Is this another spell?”

“Just a lot of ice. No shortage of that this time of year.”

She supposed not everything here was necessarily enchanted.

“In summer, there’s enchanted ice.”

Of course there is. Like the rest of the cottage, the icebox was neatly organized, and she found the grouse quickly.

It was beside the zucchini he’d sliced earlier, the vegetable soaking in some sort of marinade.

She felt a bump against her elbow and looked down to see that the winged cat had followed her.

Closing the icebox, she fed Emeral a bit of grouse with her fingers, and he bit into it delicately. She laid another chunk on one of the saucers and put the remainder back in the box before washing the grease from her fingers.

“In summer, he mostly eats rodents and birds,” Yarrow said.

“In winter, I help. It would be simpler if he liked fruits and vegetables, but… carnivore.” He shrugged.

Adding the toasted garlic to the soup, he stirred.

The smell was beginning to spread through the cottage, and Terlu found herself salivating.

She set bowls on the table and filled glasses with water.

She also filled a bowl with water for Emeral, which he licked at noisily between nibbles.

“So it’s been just you and Emeral? For two years?”

Another shrug.

She wondered if he missed his family. Had he ever thought about asking them to return, or even following them where they went? She didn’t ask out loud. She didn’t want to push, not when they were finally talking easily. “The soup smells amazing.”