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Lotti shooed them backward. “Give him space. I told you: he’s the only gardener here, and he and Terlu are the only two humans. Plus the various beasties and bugs that Laiken created. There’s also the cat, Emeral, but he’s a terrifying monster.”

“Not a monster,” Terlu interjected.

“But that makes no sense,” the ivy, Risa, said to Lotti. “There are hundreds of greenhouses that require care. It takes a team of gardeners, working day and night, to keep them weed-free, pest-free, properly pruned and cared for.”

Terlu jumped in. “And that’s why we need your help.”

She paused, waiting for Yarrow to ask for their assistance with his daily tasks, but instead he said, “Since Laiken’s death, many of the greenhouses have failed—the magic has failed, shattering the glass and causing the temperature spells to go haywire.”

A few of the plants gasped.

“Terlu has been translating his journals,” Yarrow said. “That’s how she found the spell to wake you. Now she’s going to find the spell to restore the dead greenhouses and save Belde.”

I am?

Well, that seemed like a lot of pressure. She hadn’t said she could, just that she wanted to see if it was possible. What if she couldn’t? I don’t want to disappoint anyone. “I’m going to try,” Terlu said quickly. “I’m not a sorcerer, so I can’t make any promises.”

“She understands the language of sorcerers and has broken Laiken’s secret code.”

It felt like all the plants were staring at her, eyeless, which made her want to step behind a pillar and disappear.

She’d never had anyone depend on her before.

Usually it was well-known that everyone was going to find her vaguely disappointing.

Nice and friendly, but not so impressive—that’s me.

“Yes, but there’s a lot of work between being able to read and being able to cast the correct spell… ”

Yarrow looked at her with puppy-dog eyes, so full of hope. “But you are still willing to try?”

“Yes, of course, I’ll try. I just…” She sighed.

Of course she was going to try! She just didn’t want to promise a miracle if she couldn’t deliver it.

Terlu faced the plants, with their eager, perky leaves and their soil cradled in their roots.

“If any of you remember what kind of spells Laiken used to keep the greenhouses stable, that would be very helpful.”

“He was private with his magic,” the orchid, Amina, said.

“Admit it: he was paranoid,” Risa said. They slithered around the orchid. “Even early on. But Dendy was with him for some of it. He might recognize a spell or two.”

“I can tryyy,” Dendy said. “Thaaat’s all I promise.”

“Same,” Terlu said fervently.

“That’s all I ask,” Yarrow said, his eyes on Terlu.

Shivering, Dendy curled his leaves as he wormed his way over the snow outside the greenhouse. He left a trail like a snake. He kept his root ball up off the ground, held by a mass of vine-like leaves.

“You look cold,” Terlu said. “Do you want me to carry you inside my coat?”

He lifted his tendrils like a toddler asking to be carried. “Yes, please. Plaaants aren’t made for extreme temperature chaaanges. Alsooo, I lack feet.”

She scooped up his root ball, and he tucked his tendrils around her within her coat.

“Thank youuu,” he said. “Laaaiken used to transport us in a wheelbaaarrow. At least until he wearied of our companyyy.”

“I can find you a wheelbarrow.”

“This is fine, if you dooon’t mind.”

“You aren’t heavy, and you don’t wiggle.

” He was roughly the same size as her first plant friend, but Caz hadn’t liked to be picked up—he’d preferred to use his tendrils to swing between the library shelves.

She wondered what it was like to suddenly realize you could move on your own and weren’t bound to a pot or flower bed.

“Did you leave the greenhouse often? You know, before?”

“In the beginning, I went with Laiken everyyywhere, like Lottiiii. Later… he didn’t like thaaat I had opinions. It’s been a looong time since I’ve seeeen his tower. He performed maaany spells withoout meee. I dooon’t know how much help I’ll beee, but I’ll tryyy.”

Reaching the tower, Terlu opened the door and carried Dendy inside. He unwound from her torso and hopped himself in, propelling his root ball forward with his leafy tendrils.

“It’s cleaner now than it was,” Terlu said.

Since she’d arrived, Yarrow had dusted and scrubbed every surface, and Terlu and Lotti had sorted all the papers and organized the books and notebooks, but there was still a sad, abandoned feel to it.

It’s the smell, she decided. Even after all the intensive cleaning, the workroom still smelled like decayed plants and dusty books, mixed with the smoke of the fire in the stove.

It doesn’t smell like life. No one had cooked soup or baked bread here.

The only freshness was the citrusy tang of the soap that Yarrow had used to clean the jars and pots.

Maybe she could fix it. Add a few flowers in jars.

Hang herbs to dry from the rafters. Add some curtains.

There had been curtains in several of the other cottages.

If she was going to keep spending time here…

I’d rather stay in Yarrow’s cottage than make this home.

She especially couldn’t imagine ever using the upstairs room.

She hadn’t even set foot up there since the first day, when she’d taken the only book in the room, Laiken’s final notebook.

It was, well, creepy at best. At worst…

It feels haunted. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was, at least by the residue of despair.

Sadness clung to the upstairs room, as if the walls themselves remembered a lonely, paranoid man had lived and died there.

She couldn’t see herself voluntarily spending any time up there.

At least downstairs had none of that same miasma.

And thanks to Yarrow, it wasn’t even dusty anymore.

Hoisting himself up with his leaves, Dendy climbed onto the worktable. He tucked his root ball under his tendrils, as if he were sitting. “Hooow can I help?”

Terlu waved at the papers and the books that filled the shelves, the desk, and the worktable.

“I’ve worked out his code, using the codebook he left with the dragons in the maze, but there are over a hundred notebooks, as well as countless papers.

It’ll take a lifetime to go through it all, especially since I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I’m hoping you can narrow that down.”

“I caaan look through them. Seeee if I recognize anyyy.”

“Perfect!” Terlu carried over a stack of them and piled them in front of the philodendron. “You’re the oldest of them, aren’t you? After Lotti?”

“Whaaat gave it awayyy? Am I wilting?” He twisted his viny stems, as if examining himself from various angles.

She didn’t know why she’d guessed that. Perhaps because he was so much calmer than the others, or perhaps because Lotti had chosen him to wake first. Maybe it was the way he talked about Laiken, as if he had known him for decades.

“What was it like here? Before Laiken sent everyone away. Did you know Yarrow when he was younger?”

“I expected yooou to ask about the sorcerer, not the gaaardener.”

She shrugged, exactly like Yarrow always did. She didn’t think it was that unexpected. “I’m never going to meet the sorcerer. But Yarrow is here.” And he’s a much kinder person than it sounds like Laiken was.

“Huh.”

“What?” It was natural to be curious about the only other human on the island.

She refused to be embarrassed. It wasn’t as if she was asking him to gossip.

Just… to share his opinion, as well as any revealing anecdotes.

Extra bonus if they featured an adorable young Yarrow, learning to garden for the first time.

She could picture him, caring for plants even though he was barely old enough to lift a watering can.

“I haaave seen curious humans beeefore,” Dendy said as he waddled across the worktable. “They typicallyyy end up married.”

Okay, now Terlu found herself blushing. “He isn’t like what I thought he was at first.”

Dendy began to look through the notebooks, using his leaves as if they were hands to grasp, pick up, and examine each volume. “Whaaat did you think he waaas like at first?”

“Unfriendly.”

“And nowww?”

“I think he has a great heart,” Terlu said. “He just doesn’t know how to show it to anyone who isn’t full of chlorophyll. Lack of practice, I think. Or maybe it’s caution?”

“If your gaaardener was here with Laiken at the end, caaan you blame him? Heeee had to learn to guard his heart.” He held up a faded green notebook with a frayed spine. “Tryyy this one. Laiken spent a lot of time with this noteboook, I belieeeeve.”

Sitting on a stool, Terlu took the notebook, opened the codebook next to it, and began to read as she translated.

She barely needed to consult the codebook anymore.

She’d internalized much of how Laiken manipulated the language, and besides which, he slipped into standard for about half the jotted notes.

It was only the spells themselves that he was careful to obscure.

“Do you know what happened to the sorcerer? What made him turn away from everyone?”

“Aaah. Thaaat. Yes, I waaas there when it begaaan.” He pulled out a second volume, a thick red notebook with a ribbon. “Hmm, I believe I remember seeing him with thisss one, though I think he used it to traaack supplies that aaarrived from other islands.”

Terlu flipped through it. It was lists, and it wasn’t in code, with the exception of one half page near the end. She read through the final half page. “There’s one bit of a spell—I think it’s incomplete. Did he experiment with spells?”

“All the time. He alwayyys wrote his own, or tweaked existing ones tooo his needs.”