Page 13 of Evergreen

“It’s just a plant,” I scoffed. And, for some reason, that felt too harsh, so I followed it with, “So are we protecting this one then?”

“We’re protecting all of them,” he replied, still not giving into anger or resentment. I almost wanted him to. I wanted to see this gentle giant crack for some reason. “But yes, this one especially. I’ve been working on this cutting for three years. It came from a special tree in my grove back home. There’s... a lot of history there.”

Three years. I’d never spent three years on anything in my entire life. The longest I’d stuck with anything was probably my weather magic, and that was only because it came naturally to me. The idea of someone pouring that much time and effort into something as simple as a plant seemed almost… stupid.

“Okay,” I said, still feeling irritated about the entire situation. “Look dude, I’m not much of a plant person. I don’t really get it. So just tell me what I need to do so I can get the fuck out of here.”

“They are living and breathing creatures, just like you and me,” Linden offered. “What if they were a cat or a dog?”

“I wasn’t allowed to have pets, so I don’t get that either,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest. “And I’m nothing like a plant, thank you very much. I can walk, for one. And I can do magic. None of your fancy dandelions can do that.”

Linden looked at me long and hard. He still wasn’t angry, even though I was poking him every way I could think of. He just looked disappointed.

“I guess that explains why your magic is so out of control,” he said, cutting me to the quick in a single sentence.

I felt my jaw clench at that. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you don’t respect anything,” Linden said, and there was an edge to his voice now that hadn’t been there before. Not anger exactly, but something close to it. “Not the plants, not the greenhouse, not even yourself or your studies. Your magic is powerful, but it’s wild. Untamed. You call down lightning without thinking about the consequences because you don’t actually care about anything except how it makes you feel.”

I wanted to argue with him, wanted to tell him he didn’t know shit about me or my magic or my life. But the words stuck in my throat because some small part of me, the part I kept locked away and refused to examine too closely, knew he was right.

“Look,” Linden continued, his tone softening again. “I’m not trying to be cruel. But if you’re going to be working here for the next four months, you’re going to have to learn to think about more than just yourself. These plants deserve that much.”

I stood up abruptly, my hands clenching into fists inside the work gloves. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just get to work.”

He didn’t push it, which somehow made it worse. He just nodded and led me toward the eastern section of the greenhouse, pointing out the areas that needed to be cleared first. We worked in silence for the next hour, the only sounds the scrape of our shovels and the occasional crack of debris shifting.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. About my magic being out of control. About me not respecting anything. It was bullshit. It had to be. Except... except it wasn’t, was it? I’d burned down an entire greenhouse full of irreplaceable plants because I wanted to impress some drunk assholes at a party. I’d done it without thinking, without considering the consequences, without giving a single fuck about anything except how powerful I felt in that moment.

Just like Linden said.

And now I was going to pay for that one moment of thoughtlessness with four months of hard labor.

“You can take a break,” Linden said around nine o’clock, wiping sweat from his brow. “Get some water. Eat something if you’re hungry.”

I nodded, grateful for the reprieve. We’d made good progress, clearing maybe a third of the eastern section. My muscles were screaming and the blisters on my palms had broken open despite the gloves. I could feel blood seeping into the padding.

Linden must have noticed because he reached out and gently took my hand, examining the damage. His touch was warm, and I felt that flutter in my stomach again.

“These are bad,” he said quietly. “We should wrap them.”

“It’s fine,” I said, pulling my hand back. “I can keep working.”

“I’m sure you can,” he replied, pulling me toward the back of the greenhouse. “But there’s no reason for you to be bleeding while you do it.”

Linden led me through a door that connected the conservatory to the herbalism building. There was a sort of halfway room between the two, built as a laboratory of some kind. He led me over to a stool and told me to sit while he started going through a cabinet in front of me.

While the working tables were filled with old-fashioned microscopes and flasks that looked a bit more modern, the rest of the room seemed like it was straight out of the Victorian era. The walls were lined with wooden cabinets that held thousands of small drawers. Some were lined with velvet, others plastic, and several shelves were covered in glass jars, each sporting a neat little label. I glanced at a few of them, unable to make heads or tails of the Latin scrawled over the stickers. It was all gibberish to me.

A moment later Linden returned with a mortar and pestle, three small jars, and a handful of what looked like dried leaves. He dumped the leaves into the mortar and began to grind them down, adding a tiny drizzle of some sticky substance from one of the jars.

“Green tea leaves,” he said as he mixed. “And aloe vera. Both are good for helping inflammation and skin repair.” He picked up the second jar, shaking out a few golden strands of something. “Calendula, also great for skin repair. And this,” he said, picking up the last jar. “Is Woundwort. But it’s a special variety that has been imbued with magic since it was a seed. It binds it all together.”

I watched as Linden ground up a dark green sludge in the mortar, wondering what on earth he was going to do with it. Then, without warning, he picked up the mortar and held it close to my face.

“Spit,” he said.

“What?”