“Easy for you to say. You have all the plant magic.”
“So do you, now. Here,” he said, kneeling in the nearest row and patting one of the raised beds. “Come see.”
I didn’t mind getting dirty in pursuit of just about anything indoors—when you clean working kitchens, you’ve seen the worst of it, short of bathrooms—but real soil made me hesitate.
“Scared of a little dirt?”
I told him to do something anatomically impossible to himself, then dropped down beside him and set theHeavy Hearton the end of the row. Hopefully, no one would steal it while I was talking to plants.
“Now,” he said, “put your hand on the ground.”
“How is this different from what we do in Gramercy Park?”
“God, you’re difficult.” But he was smiling as he took my hand and laid it flat on top of the bed. “Close your eyes.”
I rolled them first.
“What do you feel?”
“Ifeelself-conscious.” But he had all the patience to wait for me to take it seriously, so I stopped kidding around and actually tried to focus.
The dirt was cold, stealing the warmth from my hand. The aroma of soil and fallen leaves mixed with the saltwater breeze. A deep vibration suddenly hummed through my legs and my hand. “Is that—”
“The subway.”
I pushed the sensation aside and sent my borrowed Gentry magic into the ground. Regularly spaced splotches of magic appeared in my vision like footlights on a Broadway stage. “There’s something in there. Bulbs?”
“Garlic.”
I leaned closer to the ground and let my chef’s senses take over. Sure enough, I could smell it.
“They’ll come up in the spring.”
I nodded, still with my eyes closed, still sensing the network of life that ran under our feet. Then I released a little of my own magic to embrace the sleeping plants. “Am I doing it right?”
Berron said nothing at first, but his magic bloomed around mine, echoing and strengthening. “Perfect.”
I opened my eyes. “Can we do this for the whole farm?”
Berron’s eyes were sparkling. He stood and offered a hand. “Let’s do it.”
Neat labels identified the plants, and Berron told me more: carrots, spinach, and collard greens that were cold-hardy enough to last the winter; blueberries, mint, sunchokes, asparagus, and fig trees that would die back and return. Over all of them we cast the Gentry’s protection and strength, to feed the community when warmth returned.
The Princess of Arrows added her own spell, like green and gold fireflies darting among the rows.
In the way that Berron stood—as if this place hadmeaning, as if it was as much his home as the Fortress of Apples; not just a hopeless little plot in a city of steel and concrete, but a beacon of what could be right and true—I could see him for the prince that he was. It made me want to lean against him. To try out letting someone else hold me up. LettingBerronhold me up.
But the clash of sea glass chimes stopped me.
“Are there windchimes here?” I said.
Berron gave me a funny look. “No…”
The chimes trailed into glassy laughter. From its perch on the ground, the golden yellow gem of theHeavy Heartseemed to tremble.
“I should go,” I said. “I need to get ready for the big dinner.”
17
