Page 62

From the rafters, Lotti shouted stoutly, “She’s as good as a sorcerer!”

Oh, by the sea. Terlu felt her breath lodge in her throat.

The orchid, Amina, chimed in. “She woke all of us.”

“Yes, we are grateful to her,” the ivy, Risa, said.

“Sheee taught us to heal the glaaass,” Dendy said. “And sheee has been working tooo understand the spells thaaat created the greeeenhouses, in ooorder to save them. You can truuust her word. If sheee says this is necessary, then it’s what must beee done.”

What am I going to do? What am I going to say?

Panic spiraled up into her throat, and she felt herself begin to shake.

She sucked in air. I should have told the talking plants not to talk so much.

When she’d had the idea to ask for help, she hadn’t considered that her friends would leak her secret to everyone all at once.

How could she know if she could trust all of Yarrow’s relatives?

One of them could be just like the patron who’d reported her.

I can’t go back to being a statue. She wouldn’t. Not now, and not ever.

If she had to leave Belde, she’d do it. She’d summon Marin. She’d flee as far as she needed to, even if it meant leaving this place that she’d grown to love.

Yarrow wrapped his arm around Terlu’s shoulder. “If anyone has an issue with this—”

“Oh, hush,” Rowan said to him. “You think we really didn’t know that one of you two has been working magic? We’ve all seen the plants fixing the glass—Laiken never taught them spells. It had to be one of you.”

“Nice job with that,” Uncle Rorick said.

Others nodded.

Terlu looked at the faces around her. None of them looked alarmed or appalled. “But… it’s illegal… You don’t… I mean…” It was the opposite of how people had recoiled from her after she’d created Caz. Why weren’t they ready to condemn her? “I don’t understand.”

Rowan asked, “Have you ever used magic to hurt anyone?”

“Well, no.”

“To hurt any plants?”

Intentions hadn’t mattered in her trial in Alyssium… She blinked, suddenly feeling like crying. “Absolutely not. I’ve just been trying to help.”

Dendy said, “She saaaved us.”

“So you’re righting a wrong,” Rowan said, hands on her hips. “Fixing a mistake made by someone else. I think that’s admirable.” She glared at her relatives, as if daring them to disagree.

Coming up beside her wife, Ambrel agreed. “We aren’t in Alyssium anymore. The emperor’s gone, and his laws don’t reach here anyway. You’re not going to be punished for what you did out of kindness.”

Terlu had thought that way once before. She’d felt safe in the library, and she’d been convinced that no one would punish her for creating Caz—he was so very obviously a good thing.

Adding life to the world couldn’t be bad, she’d told herself at the time.

She’d thought she would be forgiven, once it was understood that her intentions were harmless and innocent and even kind.

I was selfish, though, she thought. Unlike here, she hadn’t woken Caz for his own sake; she’d done it for herself, because she was lonely.

Perhaps what she’d done here was different enough?

She was trying to save life that already existed.

And she wasn’t doing it for herself. Or at least not just for myself.

She couldn’t believe anyone would have wanted her to leave Lotti or Dendy or any of the sentient plants asleep.

And how could she turn her back on the failing greenhouses and the dying plants when there was a potential way to stop it?

“You’ve nothing to fear from any of us,” Rowan said firmly. “Right?” Hands on her hips, she glared at the rest of her family. She had, Terlu noticed, just as bearlike a glare as her brother and father.

Yarrow’s father, Birch, spoke up. “You’re looking after the greenhouses. That makes you a gardener. Like all of us. None of us want the greenhouses to fail.” He looked at Yarrow as he added, “We all want what’s best for our plant friends. For our family.”

She was certain that Yarrow’s father’s words weren’t directed at her at all.

But that was fine. At least, for now, she had a reprieve.

She didn’t know if they were right about Alyssium and the reach of imperial law, but for now, it didn’t look like anyone was going to stop her from doing what she could to save this place.

She felt her chest loosen, and she blinked hard to keep tears from welling up.

I can trust them.

His family hadn’t rejected her, even after learning the truth.

Maybe mine won’t either.

From the rafters, Lotti called out, “All right. Enough mushiness, everyone. We’re going to be orderly about this.

Plants will take the eastern greenhouses.

You and you—head west. You lot, start in the north.

As you finish, put a mark on the door so we don’t repeat efforts.

Use charcoal to make an X. No time to waste. Move, everyone!”

Yarrow knew every inch of the greenhouses that required daily care.

For those rooms, it was quick work to skirt the perimeter, peek into any toolsheds or supply boxes, and investigate the interior of the en chanted stove, if there was one.

Terlu searched with him, careful to watch for any corners that Yarrow might dismiss due to familiarity. The plants checked all the rafters.

A few of Yarrow’s relatives had picked the same direction to search, but they branched off when the paths did, until it was only Yarrow’s father, Birch, who stuck with the two of them as they entered a greenhouse that overflowed with vines that danced like ribbons in the breeze.

“Never liked this room,” Birch said. “Reminds me of snakes.”

Yarrow snorted. “They’re beautiful in their own way. So are snakes.”

“But why enchant them at all?” Birch ducked under a writhing mass of leaves. Above him, several vines braided themselves, knot after knot. Leafy green mice scurried over the braids. “Why not just let them be ordinary plants?”

“I think they’re pretty,” Terlu offered. Standing, she brushed a vine off her shoulder. It snuck back, trying to wind around her wrist. A mouse chittered at her, as if scolding her for resisting, or perhaps requesting cheese.

Yarrow unpeeled the vine from his thigh and said to his father, “You could search one of the other rooms, if you don’t like this one.

” He reached into one of his pockets and scattered crumbs onto the walkway.

Several leaf-covered mice chirped and raced down the braided vines to feast on the bits of bread.

One mouse had a single bright orange leaf in the middle of green leaves.

It shook itself, and the orange leaf fell to the ground, a bit of fall foliage.

She smiled. Of course he feeds the mice.

“Faster if we stick together,” Birch said.

“Everyone else split up,” Yarrow pointed out.

“All right, yes. I want to spend time with you. I know you have responsibilities and have become accustomed to shouldering them on your own, but I, like Rowan, believe you have been deliberately avoiding me.”

“I have.”

Terlu almost laughed—that was such a Yarrow response. She checked behind the box of tools before reporting to Yarrow and Birch. “I think this room’s clear.”

After marking the door with an X in charcoal, per Lotti’s idea, so the others would know it had been searched already, they moved on to the next greenhouse, which was filled with cacti and other succulents.

Several were orbs covered in needles. Some had thick arms that reached toward the sky.

A twisted tree with spikes dominated the center of the room, slicing the view of the sky.

Above, a false sun dried the air, and she felt it sink into her skin, sucking out the moisture within her, making her feel as baked as a honey cake.

The air tasted of sand, gritty on her tongue.

She zigzagged through the greenhouse, sidestepping the spiky tree’s needle-coated branches, while Yarrow circled the perimeter.

She finished her check and joined Yarrow by the door.

“I’ve been through all these rooms countless times,” Yarrow said. “I would have noticed a pile of shells.”

He was right. Still, it had to be here somewhere… unless she was wrong about the spell entirely? The ghost had implied she was correct. “You weren’t looking for it,” Terlu said. “Maybe that’s why you didn’t see it.”

Birch planted himself in front of Yarrow, effectively blocking the door. He thumped his cane on the ground. “She’s right. Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us. Yarrow, I owe you an apology.”

“You want me to talk to you? Then help, don’t hinder. Keep searching.” He marched past his father. He added a charcoal X to the door, threw it open, and stomped through into the next greenhouse.

Mumbling an “excuse me,” Terlu slipped past Birch to join Yarrow.

Birch followed them. “You don’t have to accept my apology, but I want you to know that I am sorry. When I left… There’s a lot I wish I could unsay.”

Turning stiffly to Terlu, Yarrow said, “I’ll check the supply boxes. You walk the perimeter. Maybe you’ll see what I missed.” Ignoring his father, he stalked toward the corner with the boxes. She heard the lids slam open and then shut.

Birch trailed after him.

Terlu didn’t know if she admired Yarrow’s father for not giving up or wanted to yell at him for pushing too hard, too soon.

She circled the edge of the greenhouse. This one had flowers that she didn’t recognize, bell-like blossoms that rang like wind chimes as she walked past them.

One larger flower was shaped like a cymbal.

She touched it, and it echoed with a brass-like note.

She heard Birch say from across the greenhouse, “You know I didn’t want to leave you behind. I thought with time, you’d come to your senses and join us in Alyssium.”

“I see how well that worked out for you.”

“At least in Alyssium, we were together! You could have been with us, with your family, instead of becoming a hermit here on this dying island—”

“Stop.”