“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 unspokenAnd I know better. He added, “Well, the only one aside from Emeral, but he can’t open doors.”
“Emeral?” Sheknewthere 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 sentyou. 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.
