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She cried for the life she’d lost along with her new friend.

Even if she hadn’t particularly liked that life, it had been hers.

She’d earned that library position, though it hadn’t been what she’d dreamed it would be.

She cried, too, for Caz himself. Was he happy?

She hoped so. Was he safe? She wondered if she’d ever know.

Did he know what had happened to her? Did he mourn when she was turned into a statue?

Did he know she’d been saved? Did anyone?

She thought of her family on Eano, her parents and her sister and her aunts, uncles, and cousins, and she wished they were here or she was there.

If she could find a way to write to them…

but what would she say? How would she explain?

She didn’t even know if they knew what had happened to her, how badly she’d messed up. It was better if they didn’t know.

They could mourn the woman they’d hoped she’d be, rather than worry about the criminal she was.

The floral music flowed around her, soothing her and comforting her, and at last her tears stopped.

She took a shaky breath and wasn’t sure if she felt better or just more damp.

“You sound beautiful,” she said out loud.

She wondered if any of them could hear her, and if they did, could they understand her?

Were any of them like Caz was, fully awake and aware?

“Hello? My name’s Terlu. Can any of you speak? ”

The flowers didn’t stop singing.

Not like Caz then.

Terlu walked through the greenhouse, counting the singing plants and trees.

Sixty-three—no, wait, there was a little bluebell in a bright pink pot that was singing high soprano, beneath a dogwood tree that crooned in baritone.

Sixty-four, an extraordinary number. She knelt next to the bluebell and admired how its petals widened with each crystal-clear note.

This was a chorus that an emperor would envy.

Who had enchanted them all to sing like this?

This required a lot of spellwork, very advanced spellwork too.

Could the gardener have done it? He’d woken her, but he’d claimed he wasn’t a sorcerer.

Had he lied? Why would he lie? It wasn’t illegal for sorcerers to cast spells.

If he was a sorcerer, it would be safer for him to tell the truth.

So she supposed it wasn’t him? But if he wasn’t responsible for this chorus, then who was? Who else was here?

She left the singing greenhouse through a door painted with musical notes.

One of the other miraculous things about this place, in addition to the wealth of plants and the harmony of the flowers, was the way the doorways truly separated each room.

Heat, moisture, cold—none of it leaked into the next greenhouse, even when the door itself was open.

It has to be a spell, a very complex and advanced one.

Like with the singing flowers, but more practical.

Terlu stepped across the threshold and noted that, once again, this climate was entirely different from the prior one.

It was hot and dry and far quieter, with paths and garden beds that were filled with sand.

Cacti grew here: tall ones with arms that reached toward the ceiling, as well as short, spiky nobs that poked through the ground.

A few had starlike yellow flowers clustered between their leaves and one had a cascade of trumpetlike pink flowers.

She spotted a rabbit-size gryphon on top of one of the larger cacti.

It let out a little leonine roar before it flew up to the rafters.

She wondered if it was friends with the winged cat.

She found the next greenhouse quickly and walked into a pleasantly warm room full of potted trees.

Fruit trees? Ooh, were any of them orange trees?

Imagine a fresh orange only a few weeks from the winter solstice!

Her home island boasted fantastic groves of orange trees, but they were never ripe in winter.

Her favorite Winter Feast treat had been candied orange covered in chocolate.

Her first Winter Solstice in Alyssium she’d scoured the city for a confectioner who’d sell candied chocolate orange.

She’d found one that sold an orange-liqueur chocolate, but it hadn’t been the same.

Terlu opened the next door, wondering what wonders she’d find.

But instead of a display of glorious green or a false sun or an unexpected chorus or a random gryphon, she walked into a plant graveyard.

It was such a shocking contrast that she gasped out loud.

Her breath hung in the air, a cloud of mist, and she hugged her arms as she walked farther in.

Above her, the glass was splintered, with a few panes that were fully shattered.

Snow had drifted inside and was sprinkled across the beds of brittle and withered plants and broken glass.

The brown skeletons of shriveled vines clung to the pillars, and the remnants of sprouts sat curled in pots of dry dirt.

What in the world had happened here?

All the other rooms she’d seen had been brimming with life, but this greenhouse was silent and cold. Her footsteps crunched as she walked to the door on the opposite side. She hurried through into another just-shy-of-freezing room full of desiccated plants.

Why had this happened? How had the gardener allowed it?

She continued through dead greenhouse after dead greenhouse, shivering, until at last she’d had enough and reversed directions. If she’d known how many had been abandoned, she would have borrowed that coat again.

Her shoes crunched on the gravel, the only sound as she walked back through the silent greenhouses.

They were shrouded in their silence. She’d seen a total of five abandoned rooms, but who knew how many more there were?

She walked quickly, not merely because of the cold—it felt like she’d infiltrated a graveyard.

As a living being, she didn’t belong. She felt her heart beat faster, her breath shorten.

She was halfway across the first dead greenhouse, almost back to the living, when she saw the gardener hurrying toward her.

Smiling in relief, Terlu opened her mouth to greet him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he snapped.

Friendly as always. She’d hoped that the honey cake and the clothes had been a peace offering, an apology for waking her in the cold and then dismissing her yesterday, but she supposed not. “Sorry. I didn’t know—”

“Come where it’s safe.” He herded her through the door back into the desert room with the cacti and the air that felt as warm as a sweater. She felt the heat soak into her skin as the winged cat wound around her ankles.

She knelt to pet him.

“He yowled at the door until I came,” the gardener said.

“You did?” Terlu asked the cat. “Thank you for worrying about me. You didn’t need to, though. I was on my way back.” Spreading his wings for balance, the winged cat clambered up her skirt. She cradled him as she stood up.

“You shouldn’t have gone in there,” the gardener said. “Those rooms are not structurally sound. In a few of the lost greenhouses, the ceilings have collapsed.” He scowled at the door as if it were at fault for letting her in.

Terlu shivered at the thought of the glass ceiling collapsing on top of her. Squirming out of her arms, the winged cat climbed onto her shoulders and flopped around her neck. “You should put up a sign. Or keep it locked.”

“I’m the only one here,” he said, with an unspoken And I know better . He added, “Well, the only one aside from Emeral, but he can’t open doors.”

“Emeral?” She knew there had to be someone else here. How else could those flowers be singing? She hoped this Emeral would be able to explain what had happened and why she was here and what she was supposed to do. “Is Emeral the sorcerer?”

“Emeral is the cat.” He pointed to the winged cat, who purred in her ear.

Okay, fine, not an unknown helpful sorcerer. “Hello, Emeral. I’m Terlu Perna.” Looking up at the gardener, she waited for him to introduce himself. When he didn’t, she asked, “What’s your name?”

He looked surprised she wanted to know. “Yarrow. Yarrow Verdane.”

That felt like progress, at least a little. “Nice to meet you, Yarrow. Thank you for saving my life. Also for the soup, the honey cake, the clothes, and use of your bed last night.”

Yarrow shrugged. He picked up a tote bag with gardening tools—he was going to walk away again, but this time he wasn’t going to catch her by surprise. She kept pace with him.

“What happened to those greenhouses?” she asked.

“The magic failed.”

“Why?”

“It just failed.”

“What has been done to try to fix it?”

He stopped walking. “You. You were supposed to fix it.”

She halted too. “Me?” That made no sense. She knew nothing about fixing greenhouses. She didn’t think she’d ever even been in one before, unless a florist shop counted, but she didn’t think it did, or at least it wasn’t the same scale. “Why me?”

Yarrow shrugged again. “I appealed to the capital—asked them to send a sorcerer to help restore the spells that enchant the greenhouses. For nearly a year, I got no answer. And then… they sent you. But there appears to have been a mistake because you say you’re not a sorcerer.”

A mistake. The word hurt. Once again, she wasn’t wanted.

She thought of the day she’d decided to leave home, how she’d felt when she’d realized she had no place there anymore, no future that she wanted and no future that wanted her…

This wasn’t the same, of course, and she knew it was silly to feel that way—he wasn’t saying anything about her personally, just that he needed a sorcerer to fix whatever spell kept the greenhouses intact and warm and hospitable.

She supposed it was appropriate. Her whole life had been a series of mistakes, one after another: a mistake to leave Eano for a hazy dream of a future with purpose, a mistake to think she could make it at the Great Library, a mistake to create Caz.

The magic wasn’t a mistake. Getting caught was the mistake.

She took a breath and asked the question she should have asked the moment she woke, the one she knew would have an answer she wouldn’t like: “Could you tell me… That is, I need to know… What year is it?”

Yarrow gave her a curious look. “Imperial year 857.”

She’d half expected it. All that time on the pedestal… All the days that drifted into more days, the darkness that melted into the next night… She knew it had been more than a year. She’d guessed three, four at most.

Six, though. Six was a blow.

Terlu felt herself start to shake. Six years.

She supposed she hadn’t aged while she’d been made of wood.

But her family… Everyone she knew… A lot could happen in six years.

Was Rijes Velk still the head librarian?

Were any of the librarians she knew still there?

What had changed in the world since she’d been absent from it?

Was her family well? What had she missed?

“Are you all right?” Yarrow asked, his voice gentle for the first time.

Keep it together. Squeezing her hands into fists until she felt her fingernails digging into her palms, Terlu forced herself to smile. “Yes, of course.”

He studied her as if he didn’t believe her.

She changed the subject as dramatically as she could.

“What happened to the sorcerer who created all this?” Terlu swept her arms open to encompass the entirety of the greenhouse complex, and Emeral squawked in objection.

She scratched his cheek, and he leaned into her fingers and settled down again. His feathers tickled her neck.

“He died,” Yarrow said.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

He shrugged in response.

Kneeling by one of the cacti beds, he stuck his finger into the sand. He pulled it out and then poked another area. Belatedly realizing she was staring at him, he explained, “Checking moisture levels. It’s fine.”

“Ahh. All the plants in the dead greenhouses…”

“It happened too fast, too widespread. It froze so quickly…” She heard the pain in his voice. “I saved as many as I could. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.”

Terlu knew what that felt like, failure. She tried to think of something to ask or say and all she could think of was to repeat, “I’m sorry for your loss.” She hoped it came through in her voice how much she truly meant it.

This time, he looked up at her. “Thank you.”

She was also sorry she didn’t know how to help. She wished she were a sorcerer or at least knew something about gardening beyond the basics. “How many—”

“Half. More. Out of three hundred sixty-five greenhouses, one hundred ninety-one have failed. With some, when they failed, I was able to save the plants. But too many others… I need a sorcerer to recast the spells that keep the greenhouses whole and protected. I can’t do that myself.”

Terlu could hear how much he wished he could, and she wanted to reach out to him and take his hands—she didn’t know him well enough for that, though.

She only knew his name. And she didn’t know if it would help him to be touched.

Some people needed it; some people fell apart if you did. “If there’s anything I—”

“You were my hope,” he said.

She felt pierced through the heart. “I—”

Yarrow held up his hand. “It’s not your fault.”

Pressing closer to her cheek, Emeral purred harder, as if he sensed she was upset. She took a deep breath. She knew it wasn’t her fault—she hadn’t caused the greenhouses to fail, nor did she ever claim to be a sorcerer—but still…

“There’s no regular boat that comes to Belde,” Yarrow said, “but if I put up a flag, there’s a sailor who runs a regular supply ship that will stop by. I’ll pay her fee, enough to transport you home or wherever you want to go.”

Terlu didn’t know what to say to that. If someone had given her that offer on the day she’d been sentenced, she would have taken it. She would have happily gone anywhere to escape her fate, especially if she could’ve taken Caz with her. But now that she was free… Six years, she thought.

In a small voice, she said, “I don’t have anywhere to go.”