At least downstairs had none of that same miasma.
And thanks to Yarrow, it wasn’t even dusty anymore.
Hoisting himself up with his leaves, Dendy climbed onto the worktable. He tucked his root ball under his tendrils, as if he were sitting. “Hooow can I help?”
Terlu waved at the papers and the books that filled the shelves, the desk, and the worktable. “I’ve worked out his code, using the codebook he left with the dragons in the maze, but there are over a hundred notebooks, as well as countless papers. It’ll take a lifetime to go through it all, especially since I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I’m hoping you can narrow that down.”
“I caaan look through them. Seeee if I recognize anyyy.”
“Perfect!” Terlu carried over a stack of them and piled them in front of the philodendron. “You’re the oldest of them, aren’t you? After Lotti?”
“Whaaat gave it awayyy? Am I wilting?” He twisted his viny stems, as if examining himself from various angles.
She didn’t know why she’d guessed that. Perhaps because he was so much calmer than the others, or perhaps because Lotti had chosen him to wake first. Maybe it was the way he talked about Laiken, as if he had known him for decades. “What was it like here? Before Laiken sent everyone away. Did you know Yarrow when he was younger?”
“I expected yooou to ask about the sorcerer, not the gaaardener.”
She shrugged, exactly like Yarrow always did. She didn’t think it wasthatunexpected. “I’m never going to meet the sorcerer. ButYarrow is here.”And he’s a much kinder person than it sounds like Laiken was.
“Huh.”
“What?” It was natural to be curious about the only other human on the island. She refused to be embarrassed. It wasn’t as if she was asking him to gossip. Just… to share his opinion, as well as any revealing anecdotes. Extra bonus if they featured an adorable young Yarrow, learning to garden for the first time. She could picture him, caring for plants even though he was barely old enough to lift a watering can.
“I haaave seen curious humans beeefore,” Dendy said as he waddled across the worktable. “They typicallyyy end up married.”
Okay,nowTerlu found herself blushing. “He isn’t like what I thought he was at first.”
Dendy began to look through the notebooks, using his leaves as if they were hands to grasp, pick up, and examine each volume. “Whaaat did you think he waaas like at first?”
“Unfriendly.”
“And nowww?”
“I think he has a great heart,” Terlu said. “He just doesn’t know how to show it to anyone who isn’t full of chlorophyll. Lack of practice, I think. Or maybe it’s caution?”
“If your gaaardener was here with Laiken at the end, caaan you blame him? Heeee had to learn to guard his heart.” He held up a faded green notebook with a frayed spine. “Tryyy this one. Laiken spent a lot of time with this noteboook, I belieeeeve.”
Sitting on a stool, Terlu took the notebook, opened the codebook next to it, and began to read as she translated. She barely needed to consult the codebook anymore. She’d internalized much of how Laiken manipulated the language, and besides which, he slipped into standard for about half the jotted notes. It was only the spells themselves that he was careful to obscure. “Do you know what happened to the sorcerer? What made him turn away from everyone?”
“Aaah. Thaaat. Yes, I waaas there when it begaaan.” He pulledout a second volume, a thick red notebook with a ribbon. “Hmm, I believe I remember seeing him with thisss one, though I think he used it to traaack supplies that aaarrived from other islands.”
Terlu flipped through it. It was lists, and it wasn’t in code, with the exception of one half page near the end. She read through the final half page. “There’s one bit of a spell—I think it’s incomplete. Did he experiment with spells?”
“All the time. He alwayyys wrote his own, or tweaked existing ones tooo his needs.”
Wow, the librarians in Alyssium would have loved to have access to this treasure trove. So few sorcerers created their own spells, and here were hundreds. The trick was going to be identifying which spells actually worked and which were failed experiments, and that had to happenaftershe figured out their intended purposes.
She felt the weight of what she’d taken on, hovering over her like a boulder about to fall. It was an enormous undertaking, the work of multiple scholars over lifetimes. Terlu took a deep breath and tried to ignore the butterflies somersaulting in her stomach—Yarrow had looked at her with such hope.I only said I’d try.Perhaps if she understood the sorcerer better, it would be a less impossible task? “Why did Laiken create the Greenhouse of Belde?”
“I wasn’t there thaaat earlyyy.”
She supposed he wouldn’t have been. Creating sentient plants was a rare advanced magic. Laiken wouldn’t have begun his work with that spell.Unlike me, who skipped over all the basics.
“But I doooo know the answer,” Dendy said. “He haaad a daughter, Ria. Sweeeet girl. Liked flowers. Got sooo sad when they wilted. Heee built the first greenhouse as a present to her, I waaas told. When I waaas created, she must have been aaabout sixteen, but even beforrre that, she waaas looking beyond the island—she waaanted to see other places, experience other things. Ria’s dream waaas to see everyyy flower in the world. We were maaade in part to be her companions. Distraaactions, really.”
“He didn’t want her to leave,” Terlu guessed.
“Heee had good reason. She waaas sick.”
