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He carried the pot to the table and scooped soup into the two bowls.

He then set the pot on the bricks of the hearth to cool.

“Just me and Emeral since my father left. The plants, the ones like Lotti… they went silent long before then, before Laiken died. Never knew why. Always wished they’d wake again. ”

“Lotti didn’t recognize you, but you’ve lived here your whole life.”

“Either Laiken kept her away from his gardeners, which is possible, or she could have gone dormant before I was born. Also possible. Laiken’s plants are long-lived, and he himself lived at least twice a normal lifespan.”

Terlu sipped the soup. The warm bite of the garlic filled her mouth, her nose, and her sinuses, and she felt as if she were tasting soup from the emperor’s own table.

He’d added herbs she didn’t recognize that made it taste as sweet as a late-summer fruit, while still as earthy as a potato should be. “You are an incredible cook.”

He shrugged a third (or fourth or fifth…) time. “I have the right ingredients.”

“It’s more than that. This… You could make the imperial family weep.”

“My grandfather taught me to cook,” Yarrow said. “He could look at a plant and tell you six ways to prepare it. He had a recipe for a peach tart that I’ve never been able to replicate. Just tasting it would make you dream of summer for a week.”

They ate their soup while she tried to imagine what such a tart would taste like.

She thought of summer on her home island, her toes in the sand, the sun beating down so hard that it felt like it was soaking into her bones.

Summer to her tasted like coconut and pineapple, and it smelled like the lotion that her parents insisted they slather themselves with before they went outside.

It tasted like cooked crab and like the sweet candy that stuck to your fingers no matter how hard you sucked them. “Have you ever left the island?”

“Never wanted to,” Yarrow said. “All the wonders of the world are already here, within those glass walls.” He waved his spoon toward the window, and she looked over her shoulder. Only darkness lay outside. She couldn’t see beyond the reflection of the fire in the hearth. “If I can keep them alive.”

He was talking easily, much more easily than earlier, and she knew why: they were working together now. We’re practically teammates. United to save the sentient plants. It was a nice change, and it kept the memory of the drumbeats away. He won’t betray me.

After they finished, Terlu helped clean the bowls and put away the uneaten portion of soup. “Do you know why Laiken let the talking plants fall dormant?”

He shook his head as he scrubbed the pot.

Suds ringed his wrists like ephemeral jewels.

The soap smelled like lavender, and she wondered if he made his own soap like he did everything else on Belde.

Laiken was a fool to discard his gardeners, she thought.

If they were all like Yarrow, they were extraordinary.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They were his confidants and companions. He loved them.”

Forcing dormancy was a cruel thing to do to a friend.

Or even a stranger. But especially a being you supposedly loved.

She thought of the judge at her trial and the vicious delight of the prosecutor.

He’d seen her punishment as his moral victory.

She wondered if the plants had known what would happen to them.

Did they know they’d be left in a suspended sleep? Did they expect to ever wake?

I have to help them; I can’t just leave them like that.

“You can use the washroom before me, if you’d like,” Yarrow offered.

Terlu thanked him. Still thinking about the sentient plants, she cleaned up, discovering he’d gifted her a soft sheath for sleeping—another item left behind by a relative who’d left him, she assumed. She cleaned her teeth, brushed the snarls out of her hair, and then emerged.

He blushed and looked away quickly, mumbled something, and then slipped into the washroom past her.

She glanced down at herself to realize that the sheath hugged her body and the neckline dipped down.

Whoever had worn it before her had been smaller.

No one had ever accused Terlu of being scrawny.

She’d been born cuddly, and nothing in her life had changed that, including being turned into a statue.

The statue spell had preserved all her curves and bulges, despite not eating for six years, and she was happy for it.

She wouldn’t have known herself without the full softness of her flesh.

Still, though, it did make the sheath cling to her curves.

If it bothers him, he doesn’t have to look.

And if it didn’t bother him… Well, she didn’t mind if he looked. Especially when he could cook like that.

Terlu crawled into the bed and felt all her muscles sink into the mattress. While she was eating the soup, she’d momentarily forgotten how tired she was, but the instant she lay in the bed, she felt as if a building had crashed on her—except it was a soft, comfortable building made of pillows.

From across the room, the winged cat flew up to her bed. He settled on top of her legs. She hadn’t quite finished getting into position when he arrived. Carefully, she tried to twist onto her side. Emeral fluttered his wings in protest. She held still. It was fine.

She lay beneath the blankets and the winged cat until she heard Yarrow climb into bed beside her. He’d extinguished the lights in the lanterns on his way, leaving the fire burning to cast its dancing amber light around the cottage.

Yarrow spoke. “I think Laiken was afraid of his own mortality. He knew he was going to die someday, though maybe not as soon as he did, but that’s why he made them sleep. I think he was afraid that after he was gone, no one would love them the way he did.”

If he was right, that was both sad and scary.

“Did he ever try asking you to care for them?” She knew the answer to that.

He hadn’t. Laiken had written his notes and spells in code, he’d never taken an apprentice, and he’d dismissed all his gardeners but a father and his son.

How sad and difficult must that have been—to watch the person you were supposed to trust became more and more paranoid.

If Laiken had reached out for help, what might have been different?

“I would have said yes,” Yarrow said. “I would have cared for them until my last breath, and I would have ensured they were cared for beyond that.”

“I’ll wake them,” Terlu said. She saw his silhouette beneath his blankets.

So close. She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, to show him she meant the words—he was only a few inches away.

It would be so easy… But she wasn’t sure how he’d react—he hadn’t liked it when she’d hugged him, and he was still an almost-stranger—so she didn’t move. “I promise.”