“Carry me,” Lotti ordered, and Terlu picked her up.
“Can we also bring a mortar and pestle?” Terlu asked Yarrow. “I think we should mash the ingredients into a paste this time. If I’m doing smaller magic, it will need to be directed.” Or at least that was her current theory, which seemed to match her recent experience.
He took a mortar and pestle from his kitchen supplies and added it to the basket of spell ingredients. He then handed her one of the leftover rolls from dinner the night before. “Breakfast?”
“Thank you.” Their fingers brushed as she took the roll, and she stared at their hands for a moment—his golden and hers lavender—and wondered if he felt what she felt, but by the time she looked up at his face, he’d turned away and was opening the door.
Outside, the morning air was crisp and smelled like the sea.
“Did you want to, um, talk? About earlier?” Yarrow asked.
In front of Lotti? “Later? Maybe?” Or not at all. If he was going to talk about how it was a mistake, then she’d rather the silence, at least for now, at least until the feeling of his mouth on hers faded from her lips.
“Good,” Yarrow said.
They kept walking.
“I could handle the singing until the rhyming started,” Lotti continued to complain. “Do you have any idea how many words rhyme with ‘blue’? So many. So very many.”
Yarrow led them to another dead greenhouse, far from the rest.
While Yarrow blended the ingredients into a paste, Terlu studied the words of the spell. Lotti hopped from one dead flower bed to another. “Were these unique species?” the rose asked.
“Unique to the Greenhouse of Belde, yes,” Yarrow said. “Thankfully, as far as I know, none of these species are extinct in the Crescent Islands. It was a tragedy but it could have been worse.”
“Can you send for more seeds and regrow them?” she asked.
“If the greenhouse can be fixed, yes.”
“Good,” Lotti said. “Laiken saw this as both a sanctuary and a fail-safe. If the rest of the world destroys their plants, at least all won’t be lost.”
“He didn’t have a high opinion of people,” Terlu observed.
“He loved plants,” Lotti said.
Terlu didn’t remind her how Laiken had let her fall dormant, or how he’d enchanted the others to sleep. His love wasn’t the kind of love that Terlu ever wanted.Donotlook at Yarrow,she told herself firmly.
Yarrow glanced over at Terlu. “Are you ready?”
No.“Yes.”
Standing, she took the paste from Yarrow and walked to the closest wall of windows. Cracks ran through the glass. She chose one, dipped her fingers in the paste, and smeared it over the first crack.
“Careful,” Yarrow said behind her. “Don’t cut yourself.”
She was being careful. It was cracked but not shattered, and it wasn’t sharp.He cares.That had to mean something. He hadn’t just kissed her because she was there, had he? She didn’t think so, but it wasn’t a question she was ready to ask. Terlu finished coating the crack as far as she could reach, until she was out of paste.
Now, the words.
It was a simple spell: a noun with descriptors to identify the target, a verb (“strengthen,” with the connotation of healing), and then the invitation to the magic of the world to flow via the verb to the noun. That was what magic was: coaxing the ineffable spirit of the world’s magical energy into a chosen path. She hadn’t actually read much about magic theory—those were dry texts, usually geared to echo lectures, and since she wasn’t in school for sorcery, she’d skimmed past them. She was far more interested in how language was used. There was beauty in the precision of its poetry.
“Terlu?” Yarrow asked.
“Sorry.” She took a breath and then spoke the words:
Svaniga vi rayna,
Ami pri nessava,
