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Terlu knew absolutely nothing about how to prune roses. She held up her hand. “I’m going to experiment with a spell. Can you two help Yarrow keep the other plants far away? I don’t want to risk any accidents.”

Behind her, Yarrow said firmly to Lotti and Dendy, “You’ll need to corral the others on your own. I’ll be helping Terlu with the spells.”

Intending to tell him that wasn’t necessary (and could be risky), she turned to face him.

Yarrow was carrying two baskets, both overflowing with branches, leaves, berries, and fruit, each so overladen that she could see the curve of his arm muscles through the sleeves of his shirt.

Eyes widening, she gawked at both his arms and the baskets.

“Oh my, that’s a lot. I didn’t think the list was that long. ”

Shifting one basket on his forearm, he looked a bit embarrassed. “Some species have multiple varieties. I brought them all to be on the safe side.”

He’s amazing. She’d known scholars, supposedly detail-oriented people, who weren’t as thorough or as dedicated.

“You don’t need to come with me,” Terlu said, belatedly—she wondered if he’d noticed she’d been gawking at him.

“I can’t guarantee the results. It would be better if I’m the only one at risk. You could be hurt.”

He shrugged. “Or you could be hurt. If I’m there, I can pull you out.”

“And if we’re both hurt?”

Another shrug. “Then we save each other.”

She smiled. “Well, that’s okay then.”

Lotti curled her purple petals. “Ugh, I feel like I have sugar on my leaves. Quit it with the oversweetness, you two.”

“It is a biiiit much,” Dendy agreed.

Feeling herself blush, Terlu looked everywhere but at Yarrow. “You two will keep the others at a safe distance?” she asked Lotti and Dendy.

“Yes, yes,” Lotti said. “Shoo. Go drool over each other somewhere else.”

Still blushing, Terlu followed Yarrow through greenhouses overflowing with flowers, bushes, vines, trees, and vegetables—as well as one with hundreds of tomato plants, each row guarded by marigolds with lionlike faces in the center of their blossoms. She remembered Yarrow telling her about the tomato greenhouse, but he hadn’t mentioned it also had leonine marigolds who growled as they walked by.

She wanted to ask about them, but he was walking with purpose.

There will be time later, she thought, for questions and exploring and all of it, after I perfect the spells.

After we perfect the spells? Could she say “we”?

After the tomatoes, they crossed into dead room after dead room, until at last he stopped.

He didn’t say anything at first. He just turned in a slow circle.

She looked too: at the cracks in the glass, the brittle dead plants, the cobwebs in the cupola, and the heavy layer of dust that lay over it all like a gauzy shroud.

“This was the first room we lost,” Yarrow said as he set down the two baskets of ingredients. “My father and I. We only found it after it was too late. We thought if we’d been faster…” He trailed off. “There was never enough time.”

Standing beside him, Terlu took his hand. She felt the calluses on his palm from years of gardening, but his hand was still warm and soft.

He didn’t pull away.

A minute later, he took a deep breath. “Where do we start?”

Reluctantly, she removed her hand from his so she could spread her notes on the ground.

She wanted to ask more about his father and the rest of his family, if he was worried about them, if she could help, but she’d promised to work on the spells.

This is how I can help. “Near as I can tell from the notes, this is the primary spell Laiken cast on each greenhouse. It’s highly advanced and very convoluted, but as far as I can understand, it simultaneously strengthens the windows and fortifies the perimeter so that the structure can maintain whatever conditions are established inside. ”

Yarrow grunted.

“It seals the glass.”

“Ahh.”

“Maybe,” she amended.

He raised both his eyebrows.

Terlu showed him the spell. “See, the word terilis has multiple meanings, depending on context, and I don’t exactly know the effect of pairing it with rwyr, which is essentially an activation word, with connotations that the spell will influence the natural world—an important word when dealing with plants because the suffix -yr is often linked with chlorophyll, except in cases where it’s paired with vi, which this is not, which is why I believe—”

He took her hand back in his, and she cut off, staring at her lavender hand engulfed in his golden one. He’s never touched me before. She’d touched him plenty of times—point of fact: she’d taken his hand just a few minutes ago—but he’d never reached out to her. A tiny difference that felt immense.

“I trust you,” he said.

Still staring at their hands, she gave a little laugh. “I’m not a trained sorcerer.”

“I know.”

“If it goes wrong—”

“It will be fine.”

It might not be fine. All of a sudden, the seriousness of what she was doing hit her. There was a valid reason that the judge had wanted to make an example of her. She couldn’t guarantee that the spell wouldn’t do more harm than good. Maybe this is a mistake.

“I’ll be here, whatever happens,” Yarrow said. “You aren’t doing this alone.”

Terlu felt her insides melt.

Yes, the spell might fail, but that was why she’d asked for a greenhouse that was already dead.

How much more harm could she do? “All right. We try it. For this one, we need the sand, the elderberries, the seeds from an iffinal bush, a fern frond, the bud of a primrose, and the fruit of a sweetbriar tree.”

Kneeling by the baskets, he extracted each item.

“Close the lids when you’re done,” Terlu said. She’d learned from when she’d accidentally woken all the sentient plants at once—don’t leave extra ingredients out in the open air.

He obeyed.

“Pile those together so they’re touching, please.

And then… I don’t know… hope really hard that this works?

” Taking a deep breath, Terlu began, pronouncing each word that she’d translated painstakingly into First Language from the sorcerer’s code.

She was careful to speak clearly, emphasizing the correct syllables, breathing only at the ends of phrases.

When she finished, she fell silent. Yarrow waited beside her, patient, trusting.

Above them, the glass darkened to a smoky gray. It blocked the sun, and the greenhouse plunged into shadows. One by one, stars be gan to appear on the glass. They spread, thickening into clouds of stars that swept across the false sky.

“Beautiful,” Yarrow said.

It was, but… “Not at all what I thought it would do.” She craned her neck, trying to see all the stars.

It was a replica of the summer night sky: she recognized a few of the constellations.

She’d had an aunt who loved to take all the children onto the roof and point out every constellation she could name and tell stories about them, old myths from Eano and the nearby islands: the dolphin who greeted the dawn, the mermaid who was searching for the ocean, the cat who flew twice around the sun and became a part of the sky.

She pointed toward a collection of eastern stars. “That one is the Sun Cat.”

“Why are there stars?”

She frowned at the spell. It wasn’t the words; there were no words that hinted at night or stars. “Are there any ingredients that have a connection to the night?”

“Primrose,” he said promptly. “We used an evening primrose, blossoms after sundown.” He knelt by the baskets.

“There are several hundred varieties of primrose. I brought six of the most common.” Opening the first basket, he held up a cluster of yellow flowers.

“Cowslip primrose.” Another, purple flowers on long stems. “Candelabra primrose. Common primrose. Rose primrose. Oxlip…”

“Which one blooms in sunshine?”

He handed her a bud with wool-soft leaves. “Common primrose. Usually blooms pale yellow. Prefers light shade and moist, loose soil, but can thrive in full sun.”

She traded out the evening primrose bud. “Try again?”

He gazed up at the stars for a moment and then nodded.

Terlu cleared her throat and recited the spell a second time, with the new ingredients in her hands.

Above, the deep blue cleared, and the stars faded.

Lemon yellow spread across the glass, and at first she couldn’t tell if it was from the inside or the outside, but it continued to brighten into an amber so glaring that she had to squint.

“Not primrose vulgaris then.” Yarrow began to sort through the other primrose buds.

The third try toned down the yellow. Ordinary sunlight streamed through the glass, and Terlu made notes as to what they’d done differently, noting the exact species of primrose. “The key is: Did it seal the glass?”

This was essential to restoring the greenhouses, perhaps the most important step.

If the structure could be fixed and fortified, with the cracks mended, the glass sealed and reinforced, and the entire edifice fully insulated with a barrier that both protected the walls from damage and stabilized the temperature within, then she could focus on figuring out the spells to control the heat, water, and humidity so that species from different climates could exist within, regardless of the external weather.

But first the structure itself had to be mended.

He crossed to one of the windowpanes. She followed him, watching as he laid his hand on the glass—and the glass melted under his hand into water. It poured over his fingers and down the other panes. And then:

Whoosh.

Pane after pane dissolved. They waterfalled down the walls—

“The spells!” Terlu cried.

She ran toward the center of the room, where she’d left her papers with all her notes and spells on the ground. Gathering them up as quickly as she could, she hugged them to her chest.

A second later, the ceiling dissolved. Terlu shrieked, curling around the spells, as water crashed down, soaking them.

Yarrow opened his coat and swooped at her, shielding her with his coat and his body.

She leaned against him, the spells crushed between them, as water, along with the snow that had collected on the roof, slammed down on both of them.

A minute later, it was over. Only the steady drip, drip, drip remained. She peeked out from around his coat. “Well,” she said, her voice trembling, “that didn’t work exactly right.”

His chest began to shake.

She realized he was laughing.

Terlu checked the spells. They were rumpled but dry. As to the ingredients… they floated in the half inch of water that covered the greenhouse floor. “I don’t have the training for this. You deserve a real sorcerer, not a librarian who thinks she can study her way to any solution. I’m sorry.”

He pulled her closer. “Don’t talk like that.”

“What? But I flooded the place.”

“You tried. No one else would have tried. And you’ll try again, right?”

“Yes, of course I will.” Freezing water had splashed into her boots and soaked her socks, but she felt his arms warm around her.

Tilting her head, she looked up at him. He was smiling down at her, the same look he’d given her when she’d first arrived, before he knew who she was, except now he knew all she was and all she’d done.

“Wait, you want me to try again? After this?”

“I still trust you.”

Terlu gawked at him, at the hope in his deep green eyes.

She was aware she was pressed against him, his arms around her.

He was drenched, his hair dripping onto his coat, his coat dripping onto the floor, but his chest was warm and dry.

She’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly.

He was smiling at her, and she stared up at his lips.

Wet, his lips looked like molten gold. She wondered if they’d taste golden.

“That’s not really logical, given how badly I just failed. ”

He shrugged, and she felt his whole body move. “You made magic.” He stepped back and began gathering up the damp ingredients. Suddenly, she felt cold, and she wished he hadn’t moved away. “Tomorrow, try again in a different greenhouse? With dry clothes?”

“Sure.”

She wished she’d dared kiss him instead of talking more, but she helped rescue the remaining waterlogged ingredients, and then they splashed through the greenhouse and out the door.