Page 31

Wow, the librarians in Alyssium would have loved to have access to this treasure trove.

So few sorcerers created their own spells, and here were hundreds.

The trick was going to be identifying which spells actually worked and which were failed experiments, and that had to happen after she figured out their intended purposes.

She felt the weight of what she’d taken on, hovering over her like a boulder about to fall.

It was an enormous undertaking, the work of multiple scholars over lifetimes.

Terlu took a deep breath and tried to ignore the butterflies somersaulting in her stomach—Yarrow had looked at her with such hope.

I only said I’d try. Perhaps if she understood the sorcerer better, it would be a less impossible task?

“Why did Laiken create the Greenhouse of Belde?”

“I wasn’t there thaaat earlyyy.”

She supposed he wouldn’t have been. Creating sentient plants was a rare advanced magic. Laiken wouldn’t have begun his work with that spell. Unlike me, who skipped over all the basics.

“But I doooo know the answer,” Dendy said.

“He haaad a daughter, Ria. Sweeeet girl. Liked flowers. Got sooo sad when they wilted. Heee built the first greenhouse as a present to her, I waaas told. When I waaas created, she must have been aaabout sixteen, but even beforrre that, she waaas looking beyond the island—she waaanted to see other places, experience other things. Ria’s dream waaas to see everyyy flower in the world.

We were maaade in part to be her companions. Distraaactions, really.”

“He didn’t want her to leave,” Terlu guessed.

“Heee had good reason. She waaas sick.”

“Oh.” She could picture it: a lonely little girl with big dreams and a worried father.

When you were young, the world seemed gloriously huge and life infinite, and you were unaware of your own limitations and the barriers the world could erect in front of you.

Terlu remembered she’d looked beyond the horizon and dreamed of what life would be like out there .

So many possibilities! She hadn’t understood that you couldn’t have everything, and every door you walked through meant other doors you closed.

There was a cost to leaving, and she’d paid without a second’s thought, with no guarantee of what she’d find out in the world beyond.

She’d thought it would be easy to find her place.

“He maaade the greenhouse for her,” Dendy said.

“In the beginning there waaas only a single structure, but he aaadded more and more greenhouses, collecting seeds and plaaant samples from all over. A steady supply of boats would bring them, and she seemed happyyy. He didn’t know that Ria had been taaalking to the sailors, and he didn’t know she bribed them toooo let her on one of their ships, when sheee felt readyyy. ”

So far, not a single notebook had mentioned a daughter, but then they didn’t dwell on people at all. It was all about the plants and the structures. Terlu wondered if Ria had loved the greenhouses and if she’d ever intended to come back, or had she planned to fly free? Like me, when I left home.

“I waaas there the day she left. So waaas Lotti. It waaas the first time Laiken left Lotti without water—he blaaamed her for not telling him about his daughter’s plaaans. He blaaamed the gardeners for not stopping her. He blaaamed the sailors for taking her.”

“Let me guess: he never blamed himself for keeping her here when she didn’t want to stay.” She’d met people like that, always convinced everything was the fault of someone else. They never looked at their own choices.

“Heee kept building more, expaaanding the greenhouse, thinking if he could make it graaander and graaander then Ria would waaant to return. The dayyy that the supply ship brought news thaaat she’d died… The news broke him.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Saddest waaas he kept thinking she’d return, and he haad to keep this island safe for her. He becaaame afraid that others would destroy the greenhouses. He didn’t see that others loooved them too. Or that others had loooved her too.”

“You miss her.”

“Alwayyyys.”

“And Yarrow? Does he miss her?”

“Heeeee was not yet born, when sheeeee died. This happened looong aaaago. Laaaaiken never forgaaave and never forgot. We plaants remember aaand forgiiive.”

They fell quiet, and Terlu examined two more notebooks that Dendy had selected.

One was focused on fruits and vegetables—spells to make healthier potatoes, spells to keep pests away from peach trees, spells for making pumpkin seeds taste spicy—but the other one looked to focus more on maintenance of the greenhouses themselves.

From what she’d translated so far, there were multiple techniques he’d tried to ensure the right humidity levels and maintain the temperature…

As she read, carefully jotting down her own notes, Dendy began to sing. He had a soft, furry kind of voice, and he swayed his leaves with the melody. It was an old island folk song about a mermaid and a merman who befriended a child. She half listened as she read.

It was pleasant and peaceful. There was nothing better, in her mind, than reading with company. She didn’t need constant chatter, but the companionship… that she craved. She turned another page—

The door to the tower flew open. Both of them startled. Yarrow stomped inside. He shook himself to shed the stray snow that had fallen on him.

Terlu jumped up. “Is everything okay?” Was Lotti all right? Were the other plants—

“Can I stay here for a bit?”

“Of course, but what—”

“They talk.” He sank into Laiken’s desk chair. “They don’t stop. I just… need a few minutes.” He put his face in his hands.

She tried to suppress a smile as she returned to her reading. He may have fled the talkative plants, but she noticed he didn’t go to his own empty cottage—he’d come here to be alone, with her. He wasn’t the loner he pretended to be. He was just… shy.

That was a nice discovery.

The day wore on.

Dendy reviewed more books on the shelf, choosing a few while discarding the rest, while Terlu continued her research. Yarrow puttered around them, hauling in firewood from outside and rebuilding the fire. Pulling two potatoes out of his pocket, he put them on the stove to bake.

Outside, there was a rising chatter of voices—frantic. She turned as something thudded against the door. Another thud, and Yarrow hurried to open it. Terlu joined him.

“You found me,” he said with a heavy sigh.

Behind him, Terlu asked, “Is everything okay?”

All the plants began speaking at once, their voices overlapping in a cacophony that made it impossible to distinguish individual words. Lotti pushed to the front of the swarm of greenery and shouted over them all, “You have to come! A greenhouse is dying!”