He’d probably just shrug, though.
Or maybe he’d say it was warmer.
She wondered if he knew about Laiken’s ghost.
“When did you last see your brother?” Terlu asked. “I mean, before yesterday.” And the follow-up question: Why hadn’t Rowan stayed on Belde too, with her father and brother? Yarrow had been clear that it was just him and his father at the end.
“Five years ago? Six? My aunt and uncle wanted help in their florist shop, and Dad thought it would be a good opportunity… Aunt Rin and Uncle Ubri offered to send me to the university, and I always wanted that.”
“As it turned out, she already knew more than most of her class,” Ambrel said with a fond smile. “That’s how we met. I was assigned to tutor her, to bring her up to speed with the rest of the first years, but she didn’t need my help.” She caressed her wife’s cheek fondly.
“Ididneed your help,” Rowan said. “Just not with classes.”
Ambrel grinned broader. “Zero sense of fashion.”
“I knew how to dress to work in a greenhouse,” Rowan said. “But in Alyssium…”
Terlu remembered when she’d first arrived in the capital city. It had been overwhelming to view the wide array of what people wore. It only clicked with her when she realized that it was its own kind of language. What clothes people chose communicated what they expected of their day, what they thought of themselves, and how they wished others to react to them. She’d been delighted to discover that librarians wore a standard kind of tunic but had the freedom to adapt it however they’d liked. She took to wearing brightly colored ribbons that reminded her of the bright birds and fruits and people of Eano.
It occurred to her that the clothes Yarrow had provided her probably originally belonged to Rowan or one of his other relatives. She hoped they didn’t want them back. She had no interest in wearing her old librarian tunic. That wasn’t who she was anymore.
“On our first day off from classes, I took her shopping,” Ambrel said.
“You bought me a scarf. Prettiest thing I’d ever seen.”
“For the prettiest thingI’dever seen,” Ambrel said.
Rowan smiled as if her wife was the sun, the moon, and every star, and Terlu caught herself about to sigh in envy. She wanted to be looked at in that way, with so much trust and faith and joy. “It was decorated with flowers and vines that reminded me of the greenhouses, and Ambrel guessed that—she knew I was homesick and wanted me to have a piece of my past that also fit into my future.”
Ambrel smiled back at Rowan with just as much adoration.
“I wore that scarf at our wedding,” Rowan said.
“And now we’re here,” Ambrel said, “back where you came from, and I want to see and experience everything that made youyou,except the clothes. I do not want pants like that.”
Rowan grinned at her own pants. “They’re thorn-resistant.”
“They’re like wearing solid wood.” Ambrel turned to Terlu. “Fashion aside, I am thrilled to be here. Rowan has never once stoppedtalking about all the wonders in the Great Greenhouse of Belde. Like the dream flowers.”
“You tell her,” Rowan said to Terlu. “The dream flowers are the best.”
Terlu shook her head. “I don’t know what those are.”
“What! Yarrow hasn’t shown you…? Well, we need to fix that,” Rowan said. She looped one arm through Terlu’s and then looped her other through Ambrel’s. “Both of you need to see this right away.”
“What about breakfast?” Ambrel asked.
Stepping out of Rowan’s arm, Terlu delivered the honey cakes to the nearest relatives—Harvena and Finnel, she remembered—to distribute, along with the tea. “From Yarrow,” she told them. “He… He’ll see you all later. Sometime. Maybe. Anyway, enjoy your breakfast!”
Well, that could have been less awkward.At least no one had asked why Yarrow hadn’t come himself. She hoped they assumed he was just busy. Or shy. She thought of the story he’d told her and wondered if any of them had known young Yarrow had been abandoned in a cave. Had they known about it, either before, after, or during? Had they tried to intervene or stop it? Had they yelled at Rorick and Yarrow’s father afterward, or just accepted it? She wondered what other childhood stories she didn’t know and if they were better or worse.
With a smile, they thanked her for the honey cakes and resumed work. Retreating quickly, she joined Rowan and Ambrel as they strolled toward the greenhouse.
Rowan was chattering about how the dream flowers were her favorite—she’d encountered them first when she was a little kid and prone to nightmares. “You know, the usual falling off a cliff while naked and being eaten by flytraps kind of nightmare.”
“That is a very specificyounightmare,” Ambrel told her.
“It’s not that unusual,” Rowan said as they reached the greenhouse. Each of them shed their coats as they crossed into the bubble of summer. The air smelled of warm, earthy soil and the sweet lureof just-bloomed flowers. “Terlu, what about you? Do you have that kind of nightmare?”
